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Updated: Jun 29, 2026
Murine Model of Leukemia Relapse to Induction Chemotherapy for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia
Published on: October 17, 2025
Cognitive outcome in children and adolescents treated for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia with chemotherapy only
G Elisabeth Lofstad1, Trude Reinfjell, Knut Hestad
1Neuropsychological Clinic, Department of Psychology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. Elisabeth.Lofstad@svt.ntnu.no
Objective:
To examine cognitive outcome in children and adolescents with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) in remission, treated with central nervous system prophylactic chemotherapy only.
Method:
Thirty-five children and adolescents, age 8.4-15.3 years in long-term remission from ALL, 4.2-12.4 years post diagnosis, without relapse and no pre-diagnosis history of neurodevelopmental disorder were compared with 35 healthy controls matched for gender and age, on measures of intellectual functioning Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III).
Results:
All but two of the ALL survivors treated by chemotherapy only obtained WISC-III Total Intelligence Quotient (IQ) scores in the normal range (M = 95.3), but their scores were significantly below levels for their matched controls and below normative standards for WISC-III. The difference between patients and controls was significant at the p < 0.001 level for the following measures: Total IQ, Verbal IQ, Verbal Comprehension Index, Freedom from Distraction Index and three verbal subtest scores.
Conclusion:
The results indicate long-term sequelae in global cognitive functions, and indicate that verbal function, processing speed, attention and complex visual-spatial problem solving may be affected in the chemotherapy only group.
