Prognostic impact of NF1 mutation in Korean cohort with glioblastoma

Glioblastoma (GBM) is a highly malignant brain tumor with a poor prognosis. Despite advancements in treatment, identifying robust biomarkers remains a challenge for improving clinical management. This study aims to identify poor prognostic factors and gain insights into their clinical significance through the analysis of next generation sequencing (NGS) data from GBM patients in a Korean cohort.

An Overall Survival (OS) analysis and various statistical assessments were conducted on 95 GBM patients using data obtained from the Oncomine comprehensive assay.

A demographic and clinical analysis of the 95 GBM patients, grouped by survival duration, revealed differences in age (p = 0.010), unmethylated O6-Methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase promoter (MGMTp) status (p = 0.043), and Blood Urea Nitrogen (BUN) levels (pre-operative p = 0.001, post-operative p = 0.003). In the analysis to identify genetic factors, 11 samples (11.5%) with NF1 mutations were identified. Multivariable Cox analysis indicated that NF1 mutation and unmethylated MGMTp status showed a potential correlation with decreased OS (p = 0.042 and p < 0.001, respectively). Kaplan-Meier OS analysis further supported these findings, as demonstrated by the log-rank test (p = 0.044 and p = 0.007, respectively).

In this study, we observed that NF1 mutation was associated with poorer OS in a cohort of Korean GBM patients across several analyses. Given the limited sample size (N = 11), these findings should be interpreted as exploratory; however, they provide hypothesis-generating evidence suggesting that NF1 may serve as a potential complementary biomarker in assessing the prognosis of GBM patients in future clinical evaluations.