Pediatric brain tumors even healed, children have a greatly impaired quality of life

Nearly a third of children who survive brain tumors have a quality of life greatly impaired , suffering from chronic headaches , cognitive and emotional problems requiring special educational care taken , say the authors of a study published in the "Journal of Clinical Oncology ."
" We focused on curing brain tumors , which we now succeed in about 68% of cases ," says neurologist Paul Fischer, of Stanford University . " Now, he adds , we say, that's fine, but what happens to these children We take care , but at what price ? "

With his colleagues, he has sought to assess the quality of life of older young patients who survived a brain tumor whose diagnosis went back to three years.

He followed it for 134 children a decade coming to an inspection . All types of brain tumors were represented , as well as all possible therapeutic approaches (combining surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy). He asked them , and their parents , if they were struggling to perform certain activities such as running, take a bath, they suffer from sleep disorders, they were concerned about their future , if we made fun of them at school, they had problems in school .

The researchers also reviewed drug treatments followed . They also wanted to know if they needed a school system adapted hearing aid or glasses , and they could carry out normal daily activities such as preparing breakfast , counting change and driving.

Overall, children whose tumor was more aggressive and larger were more impaired . Radiation therapy also appears to be the most deleterious therapeutic approach to quality of life. But participants were not sufficiently numerous to allow authors to compare the effect of low doses than at high doses , say they intend to collect additional data to achieve parallel and evaluate the effect of this treatment in the type and location of the tumor .

Also becoming increasingly aware of their difference with the other children , these former patients tend to become socially isolated . " The more time has passed since the diagnosis , more children are reluctant to talk," says Dr. Fisher. " They know they are no longer the person they were before , and that strongly contradict ."

"Patients who have suffered a brain tumor tend to have a lot of cancer symptoms even after therapy. They often have headaches , pain and nausea. Though they have a normal life expectancy , their symptoms do not improve . But most people think they're fine and everything is back to normal , "says Dr. Fischer , who hopes that his study will spark the interest of researchers and encourage them to develop more effective treatments with fewer side effects.