Investigação neuropsicológica pré-operatória em pacientes com glioma de baixo grau

Objective: Low grade gliomas (LGG) are slow growing tumours with a heterogeneous clinical behaviour and many patients do not show clear neurological or cognitive symptoms. On the other hand, when they eventually are submitted to chemotherapy or radiotherapy, some of them present with cognitive problems not always related to the treatment received. Inthese cases there is the possibility that the patients already had prior to the treatment subtle cognitive deficits only identifiable with a proper neuropsychological evaluation. The objective of this study is to assess the cognitive function of LGG patients prior to any surgical or non-surgical treatment. Method: 13 LGG patients were submitted to neuropsycho-logical evaluation with psychometric tests. Results: All patients presented cognitive deficit in more than two cognitive functions, especially verbal memory and executive functions. Eight patient (62%) presented severe deficitin immediate verbal memory, seven (54%) in delayed recall and four (31%) in recognition. 92% of the patients presented deficit of verbal fluency and 77% of category fluency, varying between light and severe. 85% of the patients presented deficit of mental flexibility and information processing speed.Conclusion: The importance of submitting this patient population to neuropsychological evaluation before treatment is shown, so that the detailed results obtained can lead to a more effective treatment, minimizing possible functional consequences for the patient.