Radiotherapy plus Concomitant and Adjuvant Temozolomide for Glioblastoma—A Critical Review
Year: 2008
Type: article
Abstract: Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM), the most common primary brain tumor in adults, has a median survival rate of 12 months, even with aggressive resection and radiation therapy (Fig. 1A). Regrettably, outcomes for this disease have not substantially improved since the Brain Tumor Study Group published their results over 25 years ago. The current standard of care for GBM consists of surgery followed by adjuvant radiotherapy. Although numerous phase III trials have attempted to demonstrate the benefit of employing chemotherapy in these patients, either concomitantly with radiotherapy or as isolated adjuvant treatment, a significant prolongation of survival has never been documented. Stupp and colleagues investigated the use of temozolomide (Fig. 1B) as an adjuvant to radiotherapy in patients with GBM and recently published their findings in The New England Journal of Medicine (1). In this multi-institutional randomized clinical trial, 573 patients with newly diagnosed, histologically confirmed GBM received either radiotherapy alone or radiotherapy plus concomitant temozolomide. Results demonstrated a median overall survival of 14.6 months (95 % CI 13.2–16.8) for patients treated with radiotherapy and chemotherapy, compared to 12.1 months (95 % CI 11.2–13.0) for those treated with radiotherapy alone. More importantly, the two-year survival rate was 26.5 percent (95 % CI 21.2–31.7) for patients treated with radiotherapy and chemotherapy, compared to only 10.4 percent
Source: Clinical medicine Oncology
DOI: 10.4137/cmo.s390
Institution: Columbia University
Language: English
Subfield: Oncology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W92501227