Intelligence And Memory Deficits In Patients With Intracranial Tumors

Objective:To analyze the effects of different intracranial tumors and tumor resections on patients' intelligence and memory function.Methods:All hospitalized patients fulfilling the eligibility criteria form 2008.09 to 2010.01 were selected to participate in this study. According to brain MR, patients were divided into such three groups as sellar region tumor group, extra-cerebral tumor group and intra-cerebral tumor group. And according to tumor lateralization, dominant hemispheric tumor group and non-dominant hemispheric tumor group were established. Health control group was also set whose demographic date had no significance to patient subgroups including age, gender, educational level and handedness. Then we used Chinese modified WAIS-RC and the memory test of The Montreal Cognitive Assessment to assess patients' intelligence and memory function before and after operation, the 3-6months postoperative follow-up as well, and finally, to find the possible impairments, variation law, and influence factor. 94 patients and 22 health controls were selected.Results: All the patients presented with impairments of IQ, VIQ, PIQ, short-term memory and long-term memory. The patients with intra-cerebral tumors also suffered from dysfunction of delayed memory and clue memory. But no significance was found between intra-cerebral tumor group and extra-cerebral tumor group. The analysis of tumor lateralization showed dominant hemispheric tumor group had more severe impairment of IQ, VIQ, short-term memory and long-term memory. PIQ of these two groups had no significance. After tumor resection, PIQ of extra-cerebral tumor group decreased significantly compared with that preoperatively. IQ, VIQ and PIQ of intra-cerebral tumor group had no change. Despite the lateralization and location, postoperative long-term memory impaired severely. Dominant hemispheric group suffered significant short-term memory deficit. And their delayed memory and clue memory both declined. While non-dominant hemispheric tumor group present with relative improvement on delayed memory and clue memory, also with no changes on short-term memory. After 3-6 months follow-up, patients'impaired IQ and VIQ improved a lot than that before the surgery, but no changes were found on PIQ. Long-term memory also was recovered from postoperative impairment and clue memory is better than that preoperatively. Conclusions: Patients with intracranial tumors always have intelligence and memory deficits. Dominant hemispheric tumor has more negative effect. Surgery will not improve memory and intelligence performance but makes them further decline. After 3-6 months, these impairments will gradually recover from postoperative impairments. Neurosurgeon should pay more attention on intelligence and memory dysfunction on patients with intracranial tumors.