Determining the role of adjuvant radiotherapy in the management of meningioma: a Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results analysis

Abstract

<jats:sec><jats:title>OBJECTIVE</jats:title><jats:p>The aim of this study was to illustrate the demographic characteristics of meningioma patients and observe the effect of adjuvant radiation therapy on survival by using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. More specifically, the authors aimed to answer the question of whether adjuvant radiotherapy following resection of atypical meningioma confers a cause-specific survival benefit. Additionally, they attempted to add to previous characterizations of the epidemiology of primary meningiomas and assess the effectiveness of the standard of care for benign and anaplastic meningiomas. They also sought to characterize the efficacy of various treatment options in atypical and anaplastic meningiomas separately since nearly all other analyses have grouped these two together despite varying treatment regimens for these behavior categories.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>METHODS</jats:title><jats:p>SEER data from 1973 to 2015 were queried using appropriate ICD-O-3 codes for benign, atypical, and anaplastic meningiomas. Patient demographics, tumor characteristics, and treatment choices were analyzed. The effects of treatment were examined using a multivariate Cox proportional hazards model and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>RESULTS</jats:title><jats:p>A total of 57,998 patients were included in the analysis of demographic, meningioma, and treatment characteristics. Among this population, cases of unspecified WHO tumor grade were excluded in the multivariate analysis, leaving a total of 12,931 patients to examine outcomes among treatment paradigms. In benign meningiomas, gross-total resection (HR 0.289, p = 0.013) imparted a significant cause-specific survival benefit over no treatment. In anaplastic meningioma cases, adjuvant radiotherapy imparted a significant survival benefit following both subtotal (HR 0.089, p = 0.018) and gross-total (HR 0.162, p = 0.002) resection as compared to gross-total resection alone. In atypical tumors, gross-total resection plus radiotherapy did not significantly change the hazard risk (HR 1.353, p = 0.628) compared to gross-total resection alone. Similarly, it was found that adjuvant radiation did not significantly benefit survival after a subtotal resection (HR 1.440, p = 0.644).</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>CONCLUSIONS</jats:title><jats:p>The results of this study demonstrate that the role of adjuvant radiotherapy, especially after the resection of atypical meningioma, remains somewhat unclear. Thus, given these results, prospective randomized clinical studies are warranted to provide clear information on the effects of adjuvant radiation in meningioma treatment.</jats:p></jats:sec>

The role of adjuvant radiotherapy for intracranial malignant meningiomas: analysis of a nationwide database

“…ON the contrary, studies have focused on the positive role of radiotherapy in improving local control for non-benign meningiomas (WHO grade II and III) in population-based, meta-analysis, or large retrospective studies [9,[11][12][13][14][15][23][24]. Reddy et al examined patients with malignant meningioma from the SEER data of 1973-2015 and found that adjuvant radiotherapy imparted signi cant survival bene t in patients with subtotal (HR 0.089, P = 0.018) or gross-total (HR 0.162, P = 0.002) resection compared to gross-total resection alone [23]. The lack of consensus on the role of adjuvant radiotherapy might stem from the paucity and heterogeneity of available data.…”