Survival Analysis of Glioblastoma Multiforme

Document Type : Research Articles

Authors

Division of Radiotherapy, Department of Radiology, Srinagarind Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Khon Kaen University, Thailand.

Abstract

Introduction: To evaluate the survival of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM). Material and Methods: Patients with
a pathological diagnosis of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) between 1 January 1994 and 30 November 2013, were
retrospectively reviewed. Inclusion criteria: 1) GBM patients with confirmed pathology, 2) GBM patients were treated
by multimodality therapy. Exclusion criteria: 1) GBM patients with unconfirmed pathology, 2) GBM patients with spinal
involvement, 3) GBM patients with incomplete data records. Seventy-seven patients were treated by multimodality
therapy such as surgery plus post-operative radiotherapy (PORT), post-operative Temozolomide (TMZ) concurrent with
radiotherapy (CCRT), post-operative CCRT with adjuvant TMZ. The overall survival was calculated by the Kaplan-Meier
method and the log-rank test was used to compare the survival curves. A p-value of ≤ 0.05 was considered to be
statistically significant. Results: Seventy-seven patients with a median age of 53 years (range 4-76 years) showed
a median survival time (MST) of 12 months. In subgroup analyses, the PORT patients revealed a MST of 11 months
and 2 year overall survival (OS) rates were 17.2%, the patients with post-operative CCRT with or without adjuvant
TMZ revealed a MST of 23 months and 2 year OS rates were 38.2%. The MST of patients by Recursive Partitioning
Analysis (RPA), classifications III, IV, V, VI were 26.8 months, 14.2 months, 9.9 months, and 4.0 months, (p <0.001).
Conclusions: The MST of the patients who had post-operative CCRT with or without adjuvant TMZ was better than
the PORT group. The RPA classification can be used to predict survival. Multimodality therapy demonstrated the most
effective treatment outcome. Temozolomide might be beneficial for GBM patients in order to increase survival time.

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