[Postoperative radiotherapy of glial tumors of the central nervous system]

The authors analysed the survival time of 372 patients subjected to radiotherapy after operations for central nervous system tumours of glial origin. Subtentorial gliomas with a better prognosis than supratentorial gliomas accounted for 82% of cases in this group of 67 children, and cerebellar medulloblastoma most sensitive to radiation accounted for 85%. In the group of 305 adults supratentorial tumours were found in 90.8% of cases, and the very malignant multiform glioblastoma was present in 50.8% of cases. In view of these differences the five-year survival rate was 31.3% in children than 40 years; no sex differences were found between the groups with different survival rates. Postoperative radiotherapy of malignant gliomas is of great value prolonging the life of the patients and improving its quality.