Article
Is surgical treatment a good option for recurrent gliblastoma multiforme?
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Published: | May 20, 2009 |
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Objective: Several treatment options exist for recurrent glioblastoma patients, but there is no established standard therapy. In most cases, a change of the chemotherapy regime is recommended. Surgical treatment is thought to have a positive effect based on cytoreduction on overall survival or progress free survival. Therefore, we analyzed the indication and overall survival after second surgery for recurrent glioblastoma in a large series of patients.
Methods: We performed a retrospective statistical analysis of 248 consecutive patients, surgically treated at our department for glioblastoma from 2003 until 2007. The overall survival in patients with recurrent glioblastoma was compared for surgically and conservatively treated patients.
Results: Depending on the localization, configuration, Karnofsky performance index, age and informed consent, a second surgery was performed in only 13,5% of patients. The overall survival was significantly better (p<0.01) for surgically treated patients with 16 months (SD 7.03) compared to 8.8 months (SD 7.5). for patients treated with conservative measures.
Conclusions: In our series, surgery for recurrent tumors seems to be associated with prolonged survival. Patient selection may be a possible explanation for this finding. Further investigations will have to determine the role of surgery in patients with recurrent glioblastoma.