Retrospective Analysis on Differential Effects of Treatment Strategy on Outcome and Survival on Malignant Glioblastoma Multiforme Patients

Malignant glioblastoma multiforme, or glioma, is one of the most frequent central nervous system tumors in adults, with a dismal prognosis despite aggressive treatment. With median survival less than a year, a multimodal treatment approach has been the standard care for glioma since 2006; this treatment includes a combination of surgical excision, radiotherapy, and temozolomide chemotherapy in order to combat the symptoms and increase median survival time of patients, given race and ethnicity. With this, the purpose of the study was to retrospectively compare data of glioma patients collected at a single institution over a thirty-five year period and compare the differential effects of treatment strategy, race, and tumor grade on outcome and survival. Within the 612 patients included in the final analysis who died during the review period, median overall survival was 8.8 months. Median follow-up time for the 92 survivors included in the analysis was 54 months. The effect of current treatment strategies as per 2006 appeared to have no effect on the longevity of the patients. Interestingly, race and did appeared to have a significant effect in the longevity of glioma patients, specifically in self-identified Hispanic patients and contributed to a higher hazard ratio of death among glioma patients, respectively. Though results slightly varied across univariate and multivariate analyses, the study suggests further exploration of combinatorial treatment methods, further scrutinizing race, ethnicity, and other confounding variables.