Neuropsychological Profiling of Colloid Cyst Patients: Domains Affected and Long-term Outcomes

Colloid cysts are known to cause neuropsychological impairment. However, the specific domains that are affected and their outcomes following excision are not studied in the past. In the current study, we evaluated different neuropsychological domains that are involved in colloid cyst patients and how they fared on long-term follow-up after the excision.

A retrospective cohort of sixteen colloid cyst patients managed in a tertiary care center were included in the study. The clinical presentation, largest cyst diameter, and the presence of ventriculomegaly using the Evans index were noted on an MR brain imaging preoperatively. The neurocognitive evaluation was performed by a neuropsychologist at the presentation and 1 month and 1 year after the excision.

The neuropsychological domains that were affected in colloid cyst patients are memory, rate of learning, verbal fluency, sustained attention, focused attention, information processing speed, auditory attention, and working memory. There was a clinically meaningful improvement in visual memory (P = 0.054) and logical memory (P = 0.058) in operated patients, while other parameters improved slightly. No significant change was noted in early and late postoperative neuropsychological assessments.

Neurocognitive domains that are affected in colloid cyst patients are memory, rate of learning, verbal fluency, sustained attention, focused attention, information processing speed, auditory attention, and working memory. Visual memory and logical memory show sustained clinically meaningful improvement in long-term follow-up postsurgical decompression.