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HOPA 2018 | Screening for cognitive impairment in patients receiving chemotherapy

Ginah Nightingale, PharmD, BCOP, of Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, discusses why cognitive impairment as a result of chemotherapy is not screened for, as well as how this should be tested and its importance. This video was recorded at the 2018 Hematology/Oncology Pharmacy Association (HOPA) Annual Conference, held in Denver, CO.

Transcript (edited for clarity)

It sounds intuitive or it sounds like it’s common sense to screen patients, it might be common sense but it’s certainly not common practice. I think one of the major concerns is that because these patients are so complex: these patients see a lot of providers, and these patients have a lot of assessments that are typically done as part of their healthcare visits and many of these screening tests take quite a bit of time to be able to perform...

It sounds intuitive or it sounds like it’s common sense to screen patients, it might be common sense but it’s certainly not common practice. I think one of the major concerns is that because these patients are so complex: these patients see a lot of providers, and these patients have a lot of assessments that are typically done as part of their healthcare visits and many of these screening tests take quite a bit of time to be able to perform. So, now you have providers that are overwhelmed with getting tests done and laboratory assessments done.

I think that one of the key points is to highlight that we do need to have more research showing that this is going to be critical as we have more cancer survivors living longer, meaning that the longer that they live the more that we have a chance of actually seeing the manifestations of this cognitive impairment, and really driving home that we really should be screening a lot of these patients at baseline to be able to truly see the effect of the anti-cancer anti-cancer therapies and how it is causing progression of the problem. So, we need to have more research done in that area.

I think that’s one of the key pieces is recognizing that this is an important area of research, and we need to have more patients screened because many patients are concerned about the effect of how these treatments are going to affect their ability to function. So, patients would want to know whether or not it’s going to affect their memory, whether or not it’s going to affect their independence in terms of being able to drive a car or to be able to manage their finances or be able to go to the grocery store. Patients want to be able to know that, and I don’t think we have sufficient evidence to be able to clearly tell patients: “how is it going to affect you?” outside of just a short-term or delayed memory. So, I think that those are some of the areas that I would want to highlight.

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