Preserved executive functioning and low stress symptoms in children treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Abstract

Pediatric cancer treatment can negatively impact cognitive and psychosocial development, although it has been suggested that these adverse effects may be minimized when children have higher resilience and better executive functioning. We aimed to evaluate the impact of pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) treatment on executive function, resilience and stress in survivors and to investigate correlations between executive functioning and resilience and between executive functioning and stress. The neuropsychological assessment was performed in 32 ALL survivors aged 7–17 years and 28 age-, sex- and socioeconomic status matched controls. Executive functioning was assessed by inhibitory control, mental flexibility and working memory tasks. Children’s self-report scales were used to assess stress symptoms and resilience. Results revealed no executive function impairment nor stress symptom differences between ALL survivors and control group. In the ALL group, executive function and resilience were positively correlated, whereas executive function and stress were negatively correlated. We concluded that ALL treatment was not associated with impairment in executive functioning nor to increased stress symptoms in our sample. ALL survivors with better performance in mental flexibility and inhibition tasks reported fewer stress symptoms and more resilience, indicating a possible relationship between these variables.

Keywords:

• Child development
• executive function
• Leukemia
• lymphoid
• psychological
• resilience psychological
• stress

Disclosure statement

• All authors declare no conflicts of interest.

• The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) and by Associação Fundo de Incentivo à Pesquisa (AFIP). Priscilla Brandi Gomes Godoy was the recipient of a Masters in Science fellowship from FAPESP [grant # 2017/04483-7]. Deborah Suchecki and Sabine Pompeia are recipients of a Research Fellowship from Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq, grant# 302608/2019-2 and # 301200/2016-5, respectively). The funding agencies had no role in the experimental design, preparation, review or approval of this study.