Radiation and high-dose metronidazole in supratentorial glioblastomas

We used "high-dose" metronidazole, an "in vitro" and "in vivo" specific radiosensitizer of hypoxic cells, in a controlled trial to evaluate possible enhancement of radiation effect in patients with supratentorial glioblastomas. Thirty-six patients were stratified according to functional level and randomly allocated within two weeks of operation to one of two therapeutic groups: Group 1, radiation alone; and Group 2, radiation as in Group 1 but with high-dose metronidazole. We examined survival with the Kaplan-Meier probability plot and non-parametric tests. Patients in Group 2 had a 4 1/2-month delay between relapse and subsequent death (P = 0.02). This shift of the survival curves suggests a delay in the time of tumor regrowth consistent with the ability of metronidazole to make the hypoxic tumor cells less radioresistant. Nitroimidazole derivatives may be useful radiosensitizers in human solid tumors.