Systemic therapy use for the treatment of meningioma: A systematic review

Abstract

Purpose: Meningiomas are the most common primary central nervous system tumor. Many studies have investigated systemic therapy agents for treating meningiomas, but no study has systematically evaluated these agents in a comparative or comprehensive manner. Our goal was to investigate the recent systemic therapy agents used to treat meningioma and to compare outcomes such as progression-free survival and overall survival. Methods: A systematic literature review was performed to investigate systemic therapy agents that are being used to treat meningioma tumors. The PubMed database was used for this review and articles published from 7/4/2011 to 7/4/2021 were evaluated. The exclusion criteria were animal and cell line studies, case reports, review articles, articles in a foreign language, and articles not related to meningioma or to systemic therapy agents. Results: 163 articles were initially evaluated. After excluding 152 articles that did not fit the inclusion criteria, 11 articles exploring 14 different systemic therapy agents were included and compared, focusing on the outcomes of progression[1]free survival and overall survival. According to our findings, Bevacizumab has the most promising results as it is associated with reducing peri-tumoral edema and has the highest progression-free survival at six months of 86%. Conclusion: This article evaluated systemic therapy agents used to treat meningioma tumors. Bevacizumab has the most promising results overall. However, further studies are needed to evaluate its efficacy and possible side effects among a larger population of patients with different grades, locations, and responses of the meningioma tumors to Bevacizumab.