Survivors of pediatric retinoblastoma have few cognitive and social problems during adulthood

the Oncology Nurse Advisor take:

According to a new study published online in the journal Cancer, researchers have found that adults who survived childhood retinoblastoma have limited cognitive and social issues later in life.

For the study, researchers at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, sought to investigate the long-term health issues of survivors of the eye cancer following diagnosis and treatment. Although most children are cured of the disease, survivors have a higher risk of long-term health effects from intensive treatments.

The researchers identified 69 adult survivors of childhood retinoblastoma who were 33 years old on average and were treated for the treated an average of 31 years earlier. Participants then completed cognitive evaluations and questionnaires.

Results showed that survivors had few cognitive and social problems. In addition, researchers found that patients who received whole brain radiation treatment had a poorer performance on short-term and long-term verbal memory tasks.

They also found that survivors who were diagnosed before age 1 had a significantly better performance on short-term and long-term verbal memory tasks, verbal learning tasks, and verbal reasoning measures compared with those diagnosed after age 1. The researchers suggest that the brain is able to adapt and reorganize following early treatment.