Cerebellar pilocytic astrocytoma in childhood: Investigating the long-term impact of surgery on cognitive performance and functional outcome.
Thomas Pletschko, Anna Felnhofer, Doris Lamplmair and 5 others
PMID 28968151WHAT IT FOUND
Childhood cerebellar tumor survivors scored near average against healthy norms, but against high-achieving peers they showed lower verbal memory, processing speed, executive function, and language scores.
Good quality of life did not rule out these differences.
Key findings
01Compared with a healthy norm, the survivors showed significant differences only in attention and motor function.
02Compared with high-achieving peers, survivors had lower full-scale IQ (50.80 vs 62.71), verbal memory (49.51 vs 62.07), executive switching (49.88 vs 57.19), and language scores.
03Survivors had no stress regulation differences from controls or norm, and no HRQoL differences from controls, but higher scores than norm on physical functioning, bodily pain, and general health perceptions.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only 14 patients were studied, limiting statistical power. The control group was high-achieving medical students, not a general peer group. The study was cross-sectional at an average follow-up of 13.29 years, so it cannot show how deficits change over time. The study did not assess whether patients had remedial teaching, special education, or repeated classes. The authors did not analyze tumor size, tumor location, or solid versus cystic tumor.
Declared interests
The Austrian Science Fund funded the study. No other conflicts of interest are reported.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the near-average norm scores and good quality-of-life ratings as proof that these survivors have no lasting cognitive or language effects. Compared with high-achieving peers, they scored lower on verbal memory, executive tasks, processing speed, and language.