Health related quality of life (HRQOL) measures have become increasingly important in the management of glioma patients in both research and clinical practice settings. Functional impairment is common in low-grade and high-grade glioma patients as the disease has both oncological and neurological manifestations. Natural disease history as well as medical or surgical treatment can negatively influence HRQOL. There are no universal standards for HRQOL assessment in glioma patients. In this study, we examine patient perspectives on functional outcome domains and report the prevalence of impairments rates using the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) and Neuro-QOL item banks as measures of HRQOL. Retrospective analysis of a prospectively collected dataset involving 79 glioma patients reveals that quality of life concerns are the most important consideration behind making decisions about treatment in 80.7% of patients. The prevalence of functional impairment by PROMIS and NEURO-QOL assessment is high, ranging from 28.6% in the physical function domain to 43.9% in the cognitive function domain. Pain and anxiety related to physical decline is higher in LGG patients compared to HGG patients. Aphasia severity also impacts HRQOL. The results of this study suggest that the PROMIS and NEURO-QOL assessments may be important HRQOL metrics for future use in larger clinical research and clinical trial settings.

The Stupp protocol of post-resection external beam radiation therapy and concomitant temozolomide is the standard of care for patients with newly-diagnosed glioblastoma, with expanded use in anaplastic astrocytoma. However, the optimal interval between surgery and these adjuvant therapies, and its impact on survival, is unknown. To investigate this, de-identified claims from a large, private health insurance database were queried to identify adult patients who underwent index craniotomy for resection of a supratentorial neoplasm during the period 2005-2014 and began postoperative radiation and temozolomide within 13 weeks of surgery. A total of 2535 patients were assigned to groups based on interval from surgery to first radiation treatment of up to 4 weeks, 4-6 weeks, or 6-13 weeks. Of these, 1098 patients began radiation treatment within 4 weeks of craniotomy, 1019 between 4 and 6 weeks, and 418 between 6 and 13 weeks. There was significant regional variation in treatment schedule in the United States. Survival was calculated based on time from first craniotomy to death. Kaplan-Meier plot and multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression demonstrated a statistically significant association between earliest postoperative radiation and decreased survival (hazard ratio 1.31), along with older age and male sex. Earlier initiation of postoperative radiation for high-grade glioma is not associated with increased survival. Rather, beginning radiation treatment within 4 weeks of craniotomy was associated with significantly worse survival compared to initiation of treatment 4-13 weeks after craniotomy. This is the largest population-based study to date regarding timing of Stupp protocol initiation.

Background Cognitive and language dysfunction is common among patients with glioma and has a significant impact on survival and health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Little is known about the factors that make individual patients more or less susceptible to the cognitive sequelae of the disease. A better understanding of the individual and population characteristics related to cognitive function in glioma patients is required to appropriately stratify patients, prognosticate, and develop more efficacious treatment regimens. There is evidence that allelic variation among genes involved in neurotransmission and synaptic plasticity are related to neurocognitive performance in states of health and neurologic disease. Methods We studied the association of single-nucleotide polymorphism variations in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF, rs6265), dopamine receptor 2 (DRD2, rs1076560), and catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT, rs4680) with neurocognitive function and ability to return to work in glioma patients at diagnosis and at 3 months. We developed a functional score based on the number of high-performance alleles that correlates with the capacity for patients to return to work. Results Patients with higher-performing alleles have better scores on neurocognitive testing with the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status and Stroop test, but not the Trail Making Test. Conclusions A better understanding of the genetic contributors to neurocognitive performance in glioma patients and capacity for functional recovery is necessary to develop improved treatment strategies based on patient-specific factors.