Neuropsychological functioning following craniopharyngioma removal

Abstract

The neuropsychological functioning of patients who had undergone surgical removal of craniopharyngiomas was compared to that of an endocrine control group composed of patients with nontumor hypopituitarism, an obese control group, and a normal control group. Neuropsychological assessments consisting of measures of intelligence, memory, attention, and executive functioning were carried out. The craniopharyngioma group had lower Performance IQ than did the normal control group, but their Performance IQ was comparable to that of the hypopituitarism and obese control groups. The craniopharyngioma patients did not differ in Verbal or Full Scale IQs from the remaining groups. There were no group differences on measures of verbal or nonverbal memory, ability to sustain attention, or executive functioning including measures of verbal or figural fluency, nonverbal problem solving, ability to copy a complex geometric figure, and visual motor and visual sequencing skills. The group mean scores on the measures of intelligence and neuropsychological abilities for the craniopharyngioma patients were in the low-average to average range. While craniopharyngioma patients can have significant morbidity including endocrine and visual deficits as well as obesity resulting from hyperphagia, neuropsychological deficits are not always present. Their neuropsychological outcome is more benign than some previous studies have suggested.

Keywords:

• Craniopharyngioma
• Outcome
• Neuropsychology
• Executive functioning
• Intelligence

Acknowledgments

Portions of this paper were presented at the International Neuropsychological Society meeting, Chicago, February, 2001. This work was funded by a grant from the IWK Health Centre. The authors would like to thank the participants, N. Ciccarelli and G. Dragone, for completing the assessments, C.A. Armour for organizing the project and scheduling participants, and D. Carr for manuscript preparation.