Preventive Effect of Hippocampal Sparing on Cognitive Dysfunction of Patients Undergoing Whole-Brain Radiotherapy and Imaging Assessment of Hippocampal Volume Changes

OBJECTIVE: Preventive effect of hippocampal sparing on cognitive dysfunction of patients undergoing whole-brain radiotherapy and imaging assessment of hippocampal volume changes. METHODS: Forty patients with brain metastases who attended Liaoning Cancer Hospital from January 2018 to December 2019 were identified as research subjects and were randomly divided into a control group and an experimental group, with 20 cases in each group. The control group was treated with whole-brain radiotherapy (WBRT), and the experimental group was treated with hippocampal sparing-WBRT (HS-WBRT). The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) score, cancer quality-of-life questionnaire (QLQ-C3O) score, hippocampal volume changes, and prognosis of the two groups were compared. RESULTS: The MoCA scores decreased in both groups at 3, 6, and 12 months after radiotherapy, with significantly higher scores in the experimental group than in the control group (P < 0.05). After radiotherapy, both groups had lower ECOG scores, with those in the experimental group being significantly lower than those in the control group (P < 0.05). After radiotherapy, the QLQ-C30 score was elevated in both groups, and that of the experimental group was significantly higher than that of the control group (P < 0.05). The experimental group outperformed the control group in terms of the prognosis (P < 0.05). The hippocampal volume of the control group was significantly smaller than that of the experimental group (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The application of hippocampal sparing in patients receiving whole-brain radiotherapy is effective in preventing cognitive dysfunction, improving the quality of life and prognosis of patients, and avoiding shrinkage of hippocampal volume.