Investigating chemotherapy effects on peripheral nerve elasticity

Abstract

Chemotherapy is one of the treatment methods aimed at killing cancer cells and hindering their metastasis. However, chemotherapy is known to induce multiple adverse side-effects. One of them is peripheral neuropathy, which causes significant discomfort to the cancer patient. It is hypothesized that neuropathy is directly linked to peripheral nerve damage or elasticity change. In this study we have attempted to use Brillouin spectroscopy to evaluate nerve elasticity changes and correlate them to the effects of chemotherapy.