Many cancer survivors report feeling they’ve lost some mental
sharpness following treatment. This common phenomenon has come
to be known as “chemo brain” or “chemo fog,” which is somewhat
misleading because it also occurs in people who have not
undergone chemotherapy. Although recent studies have shown that
up to 75% of cancer survivors do indeed experience altered
mental function — and that these changes can last for five years
or longer — doctors often downplay complaints about chemo fog,
says Shelli R. Kesler of the Stanford Cancer Center in Palo
Alto, Calif. “[Patients] often are told it’s not real, they’re
imagining it, it’s just due to stress,” she says. In a new study
published this week in the Archives of Neurology, Kesler and her
colleagues provide more evidence that the phenomenon is real.
Using brain scans, the researchers found that breast-cancer
survivors show changes in key aspects of mental function that
can translate to real-world difficulties. And these changes were
particularly marked in wom