The patients who were part of the project had either Grade III gliomas or more severe Grade IV glioblastomas. Over half of the Grade III patients (58 percent) were alive and well two years after diagnosis. But just 11 percent of Grade IV glioblastoma did well during the same period after diagnosis.
Early detection and treatment of gliomas is critical for survivability, Laws said. For example, in patients between 20 and 40 years of age, median survival was good (87.9 weeks for Grade III gliomas and 70.9 weeks for Grade IV glioblastomas). For patients over 60, median survival dropped to 43.2 weeks for patients with a Grade III glioma and 39.1 weeks for those with a Grade IV tumor.
Patients who underwent craniotomy and resection also fared better than those who had biopsy only. For patients with a Grade III tumor, the median survival was 87 weeks after resection but just 52.1 weeks after biopsy. Grade IV glioblastoma patients survived 45.3 weeks after resection. The median survival for Grade IV patients after biopsy was 21 weeks.
In addition to U.Va.'s Department of Neurological Surgery, participating institutions in the study were the University of California San Francisco, the University of Massachusetts, the Carolina Neuroscience Institute, the University of Colorado, the University of Toronto, Johns Hopkins University and Wayne State University.
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Contact: Bob Beard
reb8e@virginia.edu
434-982-4490
University of Virginia Health System
3-Oct-2003