Long-term decline in intelligence among adult survivors of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia treated with cranial radiation

Abstract

Survivors of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) treated with cranial radiation therapy (CRT) are at risk for cognitive impairment, although whether impairment progresses with age into adulthood is unknown. We report change in intelligence for 102 adult survivors of childhood ALL (age range, 26.6-54.7 years) during a median interval of 28.5 years. Survivors demonstrated lower Performance intelligence (mean, 95.3; standard deviation, 16.5; P = .005) but not Verbal IQ (mean, 97.4; standard deviation, 15.44; P = .09) at initial testing. Verbal intelligence declined an average of 10.3 points (P < .0001) during the follow-up interval with no decline in Performance intelligence. Decline was associated with current attention problems (P = .002) but not gender, CRT dose, age at CRT exposure, or years between testing. Results suggest long-term survivors of childhood ALL treated with CRT are at risk for progressive decline in verbal intellect, which may be driven by attention deficits. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as no. NCT00760656.

Figure 1

Change in Verbal IQ between initial testing and follow-up testing. The horizontal axis depicts testing intervals reflecting time from diagnosis to initial testing, first data point, and time from diagnosis to follow-up testing, second data point. The vertical axis depicts age-adjusted Verbal IQ scores (expected mean, 100; SD, 15), with age identified at time of respective testing. The top box (A) clusters the 49 survivors (black lines) and group average (red line) of those who did not demonstrate a decline in Verbal IQ from initial to follow-up testing, whereas the bottom graph (B) clusters the 53 survivors who demonstrated at least a 10-point decline in Verbal IQ between the 2 testing sessions. Of note, very few survivors demonstrated an increase in Verbal IQ from initial to follow-up testing (A).