Turkish Neurosurgery
Prognostic factors and survival prediction of pediatric glioblastomas: a population-based study.
Wang Da2, Cai Xueli1, Peng Xiao1, Xiang Yian1
1Lishui Municipal Central Hospital, Department of Neurology, Lishui,
2Hwa Mei Hospital, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Department of Emergency, Ningbo,
3Ningbo Institute of Life and Health Industry, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo,
DOI: 10.5137/1019-5149.JTN.31915-20.2

Aim:Pediatric glioblastoma (GBM) is extremely rare and malignant. Clinical characteristics and prognostic factors of pediatric GBM remain unclear. Our study aimed to identify risk factors of this disease, and develop an effective prediction model to estimate survival rate for these patients.Material and Methods:The data of pediatric patients with GBM were extracted from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. The Kaplan-Meier analyses were performed for overall survival. Significant prognostic factors were identified by univariate and multivariate Cox regression. The nomogram model was also established.Results:A total of 378 pediatric patients with GBM were included in our study. Multivariate Cox analysis revealed that age at diagnosis (HR, 1.67; 95% CI, 1.19-2.35; P= 0.003), tumor site (infratentorial vs. supratentorial: HR, 1.44; 95% CI, 1.03-2.03; P = 0.035), surgery (gross total resection vs. no surgery: HR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.36-0.77, P< 0.001) and chemotherapy (HR, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.42-0.74; P< 0.001) were independent prognostic factors of overall survival for pediatric GBMs. Additionally, we found patients with tumors located in infratentorial (P< 0.001) tended to receive conservative treatment. Moreover, our nomogram model showed favorable discriminative ability.Conclusion:At the population-level, we found older children and tumors located in infratentorial were associated with poor survival, while both GTR and chemotherapy were associated with improved survival. And there was no association between radiotherapy and survival outcomes. Moreover, a nomogram with good performance was constructed to predict overall survival for these patients.

Corresponding author : Xiang Yian