Clinical Pearls of Diagnosing Neurologic Complications in Oncology: Maya Hrachova, DO

WATCH TIME: 3 minutes

“The most important part is arriving at the correct diagnosis, because if you make the wrong diagnosis early on, you can really inhibit the patient’s recovery. In oncology patients especially, that often means taking a much broader and more detailed view of their treatment history.”

As cancer therapies continue to evolve, neurologists are increasingly encountering complex neurologic symptoms related not only to malignancy itself, but also to chemotherapy, immunotherapy, biologic agents, and radiation treatment. These cases often require broad differential diagnoses and extensive historical review to distinguish between treatment-related toxicity, delayed neurologic complications, paraneoplastic syndromes, or unrelated neurologic disease. As a result, neurologic consultation has become an increasingly important component of multidisciplinary oncology care.

At the 2026 American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, Maya Hrachova, MD, neurologist and neuro-oncologist at the Allina Health Brain and Spine Institute, participated in a session titled “Neurological Consultations in Cancer Patients.” The session focused on practical approaches to evaluating neurologic symptoms in oncology populations, emphasizing the importance of detailed treatment histories and familiarity with the neurologic adverse effects associated with modern cancer therapies.

In a conversation with NeurologyLive^®, Hrachova discusses the evolving role of neurologic consultation in cancer care and explains why arriving at the correct diagnosis remains the most critical objective. Throughout the discussion, she highlights the need for broad clinical thinking, deeper historical investigation, and multidisciplinary awareness when evaluating neurologic symptoms in patients with cancer.

Click here for more AAN 2026 coverage.