Awake craniotomy for high-grade gliomas - a prospective cohort study in a UK tertiary-centre

Studies from the UK reporting on awake craniotomy (AC) include a heterogenous group of patients which limit the evaluation of the true impact of AC in high-grade glioma (HGG) patients. This study aims to report solely the experience and outcomes of AC for HGG surgery from our centre.

A prospective review of all patients who underwent AC for HGG from 2013 to 2019 were performed. Data on patient characteristics including but not limited to demographics, pre- and post-operative Karnofsky performance status (KPS), tumour location and volume, type of surgery, extent of resection (EOR), tumour histopathology, intra- and post-operative complications, morbidity, mortality, disease recurrence, progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) from the time of surgery were collected.

Fifteen patients (6 males; 9 females; 17 surgeries) underwent AC for HGG (median age = 55 years). Two patients underwent repeat surgeries due to disease recurrence. Median pre- and post-operative KPS score was 90 (range:80-100) and 90 (range:60-100), respectively. The EOR ranges from 60 to 100 % with a minimum of 80 % achieved in 81.3 % cases. Post-operative complications include focal seizures (17.6 %), transient aphasia/dysphasia (17.6 %), permanent motor deficit (11.8 %), transient motor deficit (5.9 %) and transient sensory disturbance (5.9 %). There were no surgery-related mortality or post-operative infection. The median PFS and OS were 13 (95%CI 5-78) and 30 (95%CI 21-78) months, respectively.

This is the first study in the UK to solely report outcomes of AC for HGG surgery. Our data demonstrates that AC for HGG in eloquent region is safe, feasible and provides comparable outcomes to those reported in the literature.