Author
Laís Daiene Cosmoski Peracetta
Summary
Intracranial pressure (ICP) is caused by a combination of three components: brain structures (brain tissue), cerebrospinal fluid and circulating blood. When one of these components changes its volume, the body tends to correct this discrepancy with compensation, but there are cases in which this mechanism is not successful, causing discomfort to patients, including: headache, visual changes, nausea and vomiting. Currently, to monitor ICP, skull surgery and the introduction of sensors in the patient’s brain are required. In this context, researchers have developed a completely non-invasive method for monitoring ICP, which provided the possibility of evaluating ICP in different diseases and obtaining useful data in preventing complications and aiding the conduct of physicians and nurses. One application possibility to be considered is patients undergoing chemotherapy for cancer, in which complications are frequent and varied. Thus, this research aimed to identify, through a non-invasive method, changes in the ICP of these patients, before and after a chemotherapy session, and to relate to them possible complications and clinical and laboratory data of the patients. Patients in chemotherapy treatment with the most incident primary cancers in the chosen location for the research were invited to the research, with ICP monitoring performed before and after the chemotherapy session. Data were analyzed using SPSS 20.0® (Chicago, USA). Changes in intracranial pressure were noted in relation to pre- and post-session monitoring. Statistically significant differences were observed in patients in the breast group when compared to ICP before and after the chemotherapy session. It is noteworthy that the patients did not demonstrate changes in pre-chemotherapy ICP, but changes were found in post-chemotherapy monitoring. The present study showed that chemotherapy is a potential factor to change the intracranial pressure of patients undergoing treatment.
Dissertation presented to the Graduate Program in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the State University of Ponta Grossa, in order to obtain a master’s degree.
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