Neurological complications derived from metastatic disease in the nervous system or from adverse effects due to the treatment of nephrourological cancer increase as patients’ survival improves, according to research carried out by the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM).
Prostate, kidney, gallbladder, bladder and testicle cancers are part of the group of nephrourological cancers. “The success in their treatment has provided high rates of long-term survival, although paradoxically neurological complications have increased,” says David A. Pérez Martínez, a researcher at the Department of Medicine of the UCM and one of the authors of this study.
The work, published in Revista de Neurología , is a review of this relatively little-known association and of which there are hardly any references in the medical literature, despite its increase. With it, the researchers intend to alert the scientific community.
“It is important that the doctor who treats these patients and plans the treatment knows the neurological complications and communicates this possibility. Patients must take into account the burden of morbidity that one or another treatment may generate,” Pérez Martínez said.
In addition to the UCM, the Center for Biomedical Research in Network for Neurodegenerative Diseases, the University Hospital 12 de Octubre and the San Vicente Clinic in Madrid are participating in the study.
Early management, more quality of life
Cerebral metastasis is the neurological complication with the worst prognosis and is more common in renal and bladder cancer. “In the prostate it is rare to occur, but spinal cord compression due to vertebral bone metastases is relatively frequent and is considered an emergency that every medical professional must know,” explains the researcher at the UCM.
The main paraneoplastic neurological syndromes -of the nervous system probably caused by autoimmune disease- that most affect patients with this type of cancer are peripheral neuropathy, limbic encephalitis, Eaton-Lambert syndrome or paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration, among others.
The challenge of the experts in the short term is the early diagnosis of these complications, especially spinal cord compression due to local metastasis. “It is a clinical picture that, with an early management, can be solved with an acceptable quality of life and good functionality. If the treatment is delayed, the patient usually has a poor prognosis and poor functionality with paraplegia in many cases,” says Pérez Martínez.
In the medium and long term, the challenge lies in innovative therapies that prevent or reduce the metastasis of these tumors, as well as the development of chemotherapy protocols that avoid neurological complications.
Source: SINC
