A Practice Pilot Survey on the Current Use of Corticosteroid Therapy in Brain Tumor Patients

This pilot survey aims to provide an insight into the variations of corticosteroid prescription among health care professionals across the Indian subcontinent and serve as a prerequisite for the future development of corticosteroid therapy guidelines in brain tumor patients.

Participants of this anonymized online questionnaire-based survey included health care professionals involved in treating brain tumor patients. Unique links were electronically mailed to health care professionals from a database populated from professional associations. Descriptive statistical analysis, Chi-square test, and/or exact test were used for data analysis.

Seventy-three percent of the respondents were radiation oncologists followed by neurosurgeons (23%), medical oncologists (2%), and other specialties (2%). Raised intracranial pressure (90%) was the commonest indication for prescribing corticosteroids. Fifty percent of neurosurgeons preferred corticosteroids to be given routinely for all patients undergoing surgery for brain tumors while 64% of the radiation oncologists would prescribe based on imaging findings and/or on appearance of neurologic symptoms. Most of the respondents (90%) used a flat dosage pattern for determining the starting dose of corticosteroids. Emerging data about the long-term use of corticosteroids having a negative impact on the survival of brain tumor patients were not known by 52% of the respondents. The majority of the practitioners (94%) agreed regarding the formulation of evidence-based guidelines for prescribing corticosteroids in brain tumor patients.

In view of the wide variations of corticosteroid therapy practices among health care professionals across various parts of the world, our pilot survey provides significant information which can act as a suitable benchmark to form uniform practice guidelines.