Health-related quality of life in patients with recurrent glioma treated with bevacizumab plus daily temozolomide as the salvage therapy.

Abstract

e13541 Background: The therapeutic methods of recurrent glioma are limited. Most studies evaluating treatment effect for brain tumor mainly focused on overall survival and progression-free survival. It is increasingly recognized that the health related quality of life (HRQL) is of great value in clinical practice when choices of treatment for recurrent glioma have to be made. We retrospectively analyzed the HRQL and treatment response of patients with recurrent glioma treated by bevacizumab (BEV) plus daily temozolomide (TMZ). Methods: Twenty patients with recurrent glioma were treated with BEV (5-10mg/kg, i.v. every 2 weeks) plus daily TMZ (daily, 50 mg/m2). The treatment response was evaluated via the RANO criteria. HRQL was measured using the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire core 30 (QLQ-C30) and Brain Module (QLQ-BN20). HRQL was assessed at the baseline (before salvage therapy) and after every two cycles of BEV. Results: Twenty patients totally received 85 cycles of BEV with the median number of 4 cycles (range: 2-10). There was no patient with complete response (CR), 12 patients with partial response (PR), 5 patients with stable disease (SD), and 3 patients with progressive disease (PD). Objective response rate (CR+PR) was 60.0%. The clinical benefit rate (CR+PR+SD) was 85.0%. In the functioning domains of QLQ-C30, physical functioning, cognitive functioning and emotional functioning were significantly improved after the second cycle of BEV compared to baseline. In the symptom scales, the scores of pain and nausea/vomiting were significantly decreased. Score of global health status was significantly increased. In the QLQ-BN20, motor dysfunction, weakness of legs, headache, and drowsiness after the second cycle of BEV were also significantly improved. Conclusions: BEV plus daily TMZ could improve HRQL in patients with recurrent glioma. BEV plus daily TMZ as the salvage therapy is an effective treatment for recurrent glioma.