Effect of radiation and chemo on healthy brain tissue

This came out on Science Daily this morning:

Summary: A new study -- the first to examine the effects of combined radiation and chemotherapy on the healthy brain tissue of glioblastoma patients -- reveals not only specific structural changes within patients' brains but also that the effect of cancer therapy on the normal brain appears to be progressive and continues even after radiation therapy has ceased.

This was a study at Massachusetts General Hospital. Read the whole story here:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150817160838.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fhealth_medicine%2Fbrain_tumor+%28Brain+Tumor+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

It's a short article and at the end sums up: "We were surprised to see that these changes -- reduced grey matter volume and ventricular enlargement -- occurred after just a few weeks of treatment and continued to progress even after radiation therapy was completed," says Dietrich. "While this was a small study, these changes affected every patient at least to some degree. Now we need to investigate whether these structural changes correlate with reduced cognitive function and whether neuroprotective strategies might be able to stop the progression of brain volume loss. Establishing novel imaging biomarkers of treatment-associated neurotoxicity -- such as ventricular enlargement, which can be tracked with any MR scanner -- will be a critical step towards developing more selective therapies that are targeted to the tumor and spare normal brain tissue."

Amen to more selective therapies!