Survival of Ventricular and Periventricular High-Grade Gliomas: A Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results...

Aggressiveness of surgical resection for periventricular/ventricular high-grade gliomas (HGGs) is determined by operative risks and assumed effectiveness of radiation therapy (RT) on residual tumor. We aimed to clarify the impact of surgery and postoperative RT on patient survival in a population-based study.

This population-based study used the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. Patients with ventricular malignant tumors were screened for HGGs. In accordance with the World Health Organization (WHO) 2016 classification, we included cases with "diffuse astrocytic and oligodendroglial tumors," "other astrocytic tumors," "ependymal tumors," and "other gliomas". Tumor grading followed definitions established by the WHO with supplementation from SEER classifications. Only grades III and IV were included. Individual factors were assessed by hazard ratio (HR) from multivariable survival analysis using accelerated failure time (AFT) regression.

We included 353 patients after application of inclusion and exclusion criteria. The mean patient age was 38.77 ± 24.95 years, and the cohort was 61.5% male. Overall median survival was 12 months, with notable improvement over the last 3 decades. In a multivariate AFT model, older age (per 10-year increase, HR, 1.19; P < 0.001) was the sole nontreatment variable found to predict survival, whereas postoperative RT had a significant survival benefit (HR, 0.50; P < 0.001). No tumor characteristic (e.g., size, extent of invasion) predicted prognosis. Interestingly, neither partial resection nor TR/GTR was associated with improved outcome.

The prognosis of ventricular HGGs is poor, with worse prognosis in older patients. We found no evidence to support aggressive surgical resection. Postoperative chemoradiation should be administered; however, the benefit of modification of the protocol for chemoradiation specifically for ventricular HGGs remains unknown and warrants further investigation.