Item Details

abstract

Chemotherapy induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) is one of the most common and debilitating survivorship conditions for cancer patients. Currently, there are few effective therapies available to treat CIPN and thus oncologists must frequently dose-reduce or discontinue potentially life-saving chemotherapy to avoid irreversible neurotoxicity. Early detection is critical but few reliable, non-invasive tools are available that can be deployed today in the clinic to diagnose, monitor, and track CIPN. Neuromuscular ultrasound (NMUS) is a non-invasive diagnostic tool that has been pioneered at Wake Forest School of Medicine for the evaluation of peripheral nerve pathology. Few prior studies have assessed the role of NMUS in CIPN. To address this gap, a cross-sectional cohort study was designed of breast cancer patients with clinically documented CIPN. Patients underwent comprehensive neurodiagnostic evaluation including both standard of care (e.g. physician grade, clinical exam, nerve conduction study, skin biopsy for intraepidermal nerve fiber density) and NMUS. Peripheral nerve pathology was assessed by measuring the cross-sectional area (CSA) of three relevant peripheral nerves including the sural, tibial, and median nerves and comparing to previously collected data from healthy controls. In this study, we show that sural but not tibial nerve assessments CSA is significantly smaller in taxane CIPN compared to healthy controls supporting a sensory predominant neuropathy expected in these patients. These data support further development of NMUS in CIPN.

subject

Breast cancer

Chemotherapy induced peripheral neuropathy

Neuropathy

Ultrasound

contributor

Strowd, Roy Ervin (author)

Lesser, Glenn J (committee chair)

Hsu, Fang-Chi (committee member)

Cartwright, Michael S (committee member)

date

2020-05-29T08:36:05Z (accessioned)

2021-05-28T08:30:13Z (available)

2020 (issued)

degree

Clinical and Population Translational Sciences (discipline)

embargo

2021-05-28 (terms)

identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/96836 (uri)

language

en (iso)

publisher

Wake Forest University

title

USE OF NEUROMUSCULAR ULTRASOUND FOR THE EVALUATION OF CHEMOTHERAPY INDUCED PERIPHERAL NEUROPATHY

type

Thesis