Cancer Health Center

Cancer Survivors Often Face Memory Problems

Cancer Survivors Face Quality-of-Life Issues continued...

"I tried to stay engaged and organized to help counteract it; exercise seemed to help, too," she says.

The new study "brings attention to a very important cancer survivorship issue," says Jeffrey S. Wefel, PhD, an assistant professor of neuro-oncology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

"If you are having these symptoms, bring them to your physician's attention," he says. Treatment may help.

Many studies on this phenomenon have been of breast cancer survivors, he tells WebMD. "There has been a subset of women with breast cancer who exhibit memory impairments at diagnosis, but before treatment so there is some suggestion that the cancer itself may cause changes in the biological milieu and cause cognitive problems,  but the jury is still out as there is no clear answer to why this occurs."