Comparative analysis of the prognosis of external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) and EBRT plus brachytherapy for...

Radiotherapy is one of the effective ways to treat glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). We aimed to explore the prognostic difference between external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) and EBRT combined with brachytherapy (EBRT + BT).

The GBM patients from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database were divided into two cohorts: the EBRT cohort and the EBRT + BT cohort. Kaplan-Meier (KM) analysis and Cox proportional hazards regression were used to determine the underlying risk factors for overall survival (OS) and disease-specific survival (DSS). And the competing risk model and propensity score matching (PSM) was adopted to eliminate potential biases. We also conducted subgroup analyses and interaction tests as well.

There was a total of 41,010 eligible GBM patients. The median OS (15 months) and DSS (17 months) of the EBRT + BT cohort were significantly longer than that of the EBRT cohort (OS = 11 months, DSS = 12 months). After using the competing risk model and PSM, we found that only advanced age was the independent risk factor, while only EBRT + BT was the independent protective factor (HR = 0.84, 95%CI [0.74,0.96], p = 0.01). EBRT had universal effects in the treatment of GBM, and EBRT + BT had a more pronounced protective effect in the subgroups of males (HR = 0.81, 95%CI [0.68,0.97], p = 0.02) and local excision (HR = 0.82, 95%CI [0.34,0.95], p = 0.01).

The therapeutical effect of EBRT + BT treatment is better than that of EBRT alone, especially in male patients or patients who have undergone local resection. Our findings may provide novel evidence to develop a better radiotherapy strategy for GBM patients.