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Updated: Jun 17, 2025
Quantitative Immunohistochemistry of the Cellular Microenvironment in Patient Glioblastoma Resections
Published on: July 31, 2017
Comparative analysis of molecular and histological glioblastomas: insights into prognostic variance
Myunghwan Lee1, Philipp Karschnia2,3, Yae Won Park4
1Department of Radiology and Research Institute of Radiological Science and Center for Clinical Imaging Data Science, Yonsei University College of Medicine, 50-1 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, 120-752, Korea.
Purpose:
Whether molecular glioblastomas (GBMs) identify with a similar dismal prognosis as a "classical" histological GBM is controversial. This study aimed to compare the clinical, molecular, imaging, surgical factors, and prognosis between molecular GBMs and histological GBMs.
Methods:
Retrospective chart and imaging review was performed in 983 IDH-wildtype GBM patients (52 molecular GBMs and 931 histological GBMs) from a single institution between 2005 and 2023. Propensity score-matched analysis was additionally performed to adjust for differences in baseline variables between molecular GBMs and histological GBMs.
Results:
Molecular GBM patients were substantially younger (58.1 vs. 62.4, P = 0.014) with higher rate of TERTp mutation (84.6% vs. 50.3%, P < 0.001) compared with histological GBM patients. Imaging showed higher incidence of gliomatosis cerebri pattern (32.7% vs. 9.2%, P < 0.001) in molecular GBM compared with histological GBM, which resulted in lesser extent of resection (P < 0.001) in these patients. The survival was significantly better in molecular GBM compared to histological GBM (median OS 30.2 vs. 18.4 months, P = 0.001). The superior outcome was confirmed in propensity score analyses by matching histological GBM to molecular GBM (P < 0.001).
Conclusion:
There are distinct clinical, molecular, and imaging differences between molecular GBMs and histological GBMs. Our results suggest that molecular GBMs have a more favorable prognosis than histological GBMs.
