Learning Impairments Among Survivors of Childhood Cancer
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2010-03-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
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.