Abstract
Taxanes are considered to be the key drugs in the treatment of breast cancer. Although physicians who treat patients with breast cancer have rarely seen patients with neuropathy as an adverse effect of treatment before the advent of taxanes, patients with breast cancer who are treated with taxanes frequent-ly exhibit peripheral neuropathy. As peripheral neuropathy often causes deterioration of the quality of life of patients, it is very important to precisely assess the extent of peripheral neuropathy at an early stage. Clinical oncologists should be familiar with the techniques of neurological examination. In this article we describe the basic techniques for the neurological examination of patients with tax-ane-induced peripheral neuropathy. In the hope of facilitating the precise evaluation of taxane-induced peripheral neuropathy, the items of neurological examinations in this article are described with reference to the physician neuroexamination form (PNEF) designed by BioNumerik Pharmaceuticals Inc.
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Abbreviations
- PNEF:
-
Physician Neuroexamination Form
- CSPOR-BC:
-
Comprehensive Support Project for Oncological Research of Breast Cancer
- N-SAS BC:
-
National Surgical Adjuvant Study of Breast Cancer
- HOR:
-
Health Outcome Research
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Ohsumi, S., Sunada, Y. Techniques for the neurological examination of taxane-induced neuropathy. Breast Cancer 11, 86–91 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02968009
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02968009