Eye movement affected in former Childhood Cancer patients

A study from Lund University in Sweden shows that commonly used chemo toxins impair the eyesight in childhood cancer survivors in a way that indicates an impact on the central nervous system. Nowadays, the lives of the majority of all children with cancer can be spared. However, the cure for the disease comes with a price: some of the survivors will suffer long-term injury from the treatment. A study from Lund University in Sweden now shows that commonly used chemo toxins impair the eyesight in childhood cancer survivors in a way that indicates an impact on the central nervous system.

It was not the former patients' visual acuity that had been damaged; rather their eye motor skills, the eyes' ability to follow moving objects.
It has been previously known that cisplatin, methotrexate, and ifosfamide, the types of chemo which the subjects of the study had been treated with, can penetrate the so-called blood-brain barrier, and thereby damage the nervous system. What has not been known, however, is whether the eye motor skills could be affected, and the consequences of that.