Outcomes of pediatric glioblastoma treated with adjuvant chemoradiation with temozolomide and correlation with prognostic factors.

Abstract

Background:Pediatric glioblastoma (pGBM) patients are underrepresented in major trials for this disease. We aimed to explore the outcome of pGBM patients treated with concurrent and adjuvant temozolomide (TMZ).Materials and Methods:23 patients of pGBM treated from 2004 to 2010 were included in this retrospective analysis. Adjuvant therapy included conformal radiation 60 gray at 2 gray/fraction daily over 6 weeks with concurrent TMZ 75 mg/m2 followed by six cycles of adjuvant TMZ 150-200 mg/m2 (day 1-5) every 4 weeks. Kaplan-Meier estimates of overall survival (OS) were determined. Univariate analysis with log-rank test was used to determine the impact of prognostic variables on survival.Results:Median age at presentation was 11.5 years (range: 7-19 years) and M:F ratio was 15:8. All patients underwent maximal safe surgical resection; 13 gross total resection and 10 sub-total resection. At a median follow-up of 18 months (range: 2.1-126 months), the estimated median OS was 41.9 months. The estimated median OS for patients receiving only concurrent TMZ was 8 months while that for patients receiving concurrent and adjuvant TMZ was 41.9 months (P = 0.081). Estimated median OS for patients who did not complete six cycles of adjuvant TMZ was 9.5 months versus not reached for those who completed at least six cycles (P = 0.0005). Other prognostic factors did not correlate with survival.Conclusions:Our study shows the benefit of TMZ for pGBM patients. Both concurrent and adjuvant TMZ seem to be important for superior OS in this group of patients.