Learning Impairments Among Survivors of Childhood Cancer

Summary

Children surviving some types of cancer have a higher risk of developing learning problems after cancer treatment than do children who have not had cancer or its treatment. Cancer treatment may cause problems with learning, attention, and memory. The purpose of this study is to identify brain changes that may underlie learning problems in cancer survivors and investigate whether methylphenidate (a stimulant medication) may reduce these problems. Subjects who have had treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) or a brain tumor will be asked to take part in this research study. Siblings of some subjects will also be asked to take part, so that their results can be compared with those of children who have had cancer treatment. We hypothesize that children receiving more aggressive therapy will have lower white matter brain volumes and these volumes will be significantly lower than age-matched siblings. We also hypothesize that children who take methylphenidate will show improvements on teacher and parent report measures of attention and social skills.

Timeline

Start

2000-01

Primary completion

2010-03

Completion

2010-03

Publications

• Background Mulhern RK, Khan RB, Kaplan S, Helton S, Christensen R, Bonner M, Brown R, Xiong X, Wu S, Gururangan S, Reddick WE. Short-term efficacy of methylphenidate: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial among survivors of childhood cancer. J Clin Oncol. 2004 Dec 1;22(23):4795-803. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2004.04.128.
• Background Reddick WE, Shan ZY, Glass JO, Helton S, Xiong X, Wu S, Bonner MJ, Howard SC, Christensen R, Khan RB, Pui CH, Mulhern RK. Smaller white-matter volumes are associated with larger deficits in attention and learning among long-term survivors of acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Cancer. 2006 Feb 15;106(4):941-9. doi: 10.1002/cncr.21679.
• Background Conklin HM, Khan RB, Reddick WE, Helton S, Brown R, Howard SC, Bonner M, Christensen R, Wu S, Xiong X, Mulhern RK. Acute neurocognitive response to methylphenidate among survivors of childhood cancer: a randomized, double-blind, cross-over trial. J Pediatr Psychol. 2007 Oct;32(9):1127-39. doi: 10.1093/jpepsy/jsm045. Epub 2007 Jun 14.
• Background Reeves CB, Palmer S, Gross AM, Simonian SJ, Taylor L, Willingham E, Mulhern RK. Brief report: sluggish cognitive tempo among pediatric survivors of acute lymphoblastic leukemia. J Pediatr Psychol. 2007 Oct;32(9):1050-4. doi: 10.1093/jpepsy/jsm063. Epub 2007 Oct 12.
• Conklin HM, Lawford J, Jasper BW, Morris EB, Howard SC, Ogg SW, Wu S, Xiong X, Khan RB. Side effects of methylphenidate in childhood cancer survivors: a randomized placebo-controlled trial. Pediatrics. 2009 Jul;124(1):226-33. doi: 10.1542/peds.2008-1855.

Drugs

Indications