Examining Chemotherapy-Related Cognitive Changes in Colorectal Cancer Patients: A Feasibility Trial

Research suggests that chemotherapy may be related to a decline in cognitive

functions such as memory and attention in some solid tumor cancer patients.

However, the presence, extent and course of any cognitive decline and whether or not

it causes observable difficulties for patients remain unclear. The majority of research studies to date have explored cognitive function in cancer patients after treatment has been completed. Few studies have measured patients’ cognitive function prior to the commencement of chemotherapy treatment and hence these studies do not have any baseline. Measuring cognitive function both before and after chemotherapy would make it possible to identify changes occurring during treatment and the duration of such treatment related changes. An additional limitation of existing studies is that they have often lacked a

comparison group (e.g. cancer patients who have not required chemotherapy) against

which to compare cognitive function scores. Furthermore, the majority of cognitive

research to date has focussed on female breast cancer patients. This has precluded an exploration of gender differences in relation to cognitive decline.