Wilburn E. Reddick1,
John O. Glass1, Nan Zhang2, Ronald C. Peterson3,
Larry E. Kun1, Ching-Hon Pui4, Melissa M. Hudson4,
Leslie L. Robison5, Kevin R. Krull5, Gregory T.
Armstrong5
1Radiological
Sciences, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, United States; 2Biostatistics,
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, United States; 3Neurology,
The Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, United States; 4Oncology, St. Jude
Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, United States; 5Epidemiology
& Cancer Control, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN,
United States
The objective of this study was to determine whether neuroanatomical characteristics of dementia were associated with memory impairment in a unique cohort of 85 long-term survivors of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia treated with cranial irradiation. Patients were 27-51 years of age (mean 36.5&[plusmn]6.2 years) at the time of imaging. Survivors with memory impairment demonstrated a structural neuroimaging phenotype characterized by elevated diffusivity in the temporal-parietal memory network, atypical cortical thinning of the medial orbito-frontal and parietal regions, and smaller hippocampal volumes in regions CA2-3 and CA4-Dentate Gyrus consistent with early aging and increased risk for additional memory impairment.