Chemo-brain can last at least twenty years.

Chemo-brain can last at least twenty years.

Patients treated with chemotherapy sometimes suffer from what is commonly called 'chemo-brain', a group of symptoms related to memory and concentration defects.  A study was done with long-term breast cancer survivors who had been treated with a specific chemotherapy regimen (cyclophosphamide, methotrexate and fluorouracil). The  survivors were compared to women of the same age  who had NOT had cancer.  The results showed that the women treated with chemotherapy had memory and processing defects many years after the treatment ended.