Brain Cancer Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Brain Cancer, including details on symptoms, benign and malignant tumors, gliomas, treatment.

Attention dysfunction and parent reporting in children with brain tumors.

Patel SK, Lai-Yates JJ, Anderson JW, Katz ER

City of Hope National Medical Center and Beckman Research Institute, Division of Population Sciences & Pediatrics, Duarte, California 91010-3000, USA. supatel@coh.org

BACKGROUND: The IQ declines observed in children treated for brain tumor emerge as "late effects" and are conceptualized as secondary to changes in underlying mental processes, such as attention. Early identification of the underlying changes might help minimize the long-term adverse outcomes. We evaluated the validity of a time-efficient, standardized parent-report measure in identifying attention dysfunction in childhood brain tumor survivors. PROCEDURE: Seventy survivors between ages 6 and 16 who met eligibility criteria and who had completed a standard neuropsychological evaluation were classified into an attention dysfunction group and a non-attention dysfunction group, based on their performance on objective measures of attention. Analysis of covariance was used to evaluate group differences on the widely used, parent report Child Behavioral Checklist (CBCL). RESULTS: Survivors in the attention dysfunction group were reported by their parents as having significantly more attention problems relative to the group without attention dysfunction on objective testing. Furthermore, survivors categorized as having attention dysfunction based on their neuropsychological test scores were reported on the CBCL by their parents as having significantly more social problems compared to the non-attention dysfunction group. CONCLUSIONS: Standardized parent reporting of attention problems shows promise as a screening tool to detect attention dysfunction among survivors of childhood brain tumors. Findings include a strong association of decreased social functioning with attention dysfunction in brain tumor survivors. Furthermore, exploratory data suggest that the behavioral presentation of attention dysfunction in this group may be different from other clinical groups.

Published 22 October 2007 in Pediatr Blood Cancer, 49(7): 970-4.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Brain Cancer Research Today. All Rights Reserved.