Prolonged survival when temozolomide is added to accelerated radiotherapy for glioblastoma multiforme.

Background: The goal of this study was to evaluate accelerated radiotherapy with and without temozolomide (TMZ) for glioblastoma multiforme (GBM).

Methods: This retrospective analysis evaluated 86 patients with histologically proven GBM who were treated with accelerated radiotherapy of 1.8 Gy twice daily to a total dose of 54 Gy within 3 weeks. Median age was 62 years and median Karnofsky index was 90. A total of 41 patients received radiotherapy only from 2002-2005 and 45 patients were treated with TMZ concomitantly and after radiotherapy from 2005-2007.

Results: Median overall survival (OS) was 12.5 months and 2-year OS was 15.4%. Patient characteristics were well balanced between the two groups except for better performance status (p = 0.05) and higher frequency of retreatment for the first recurrence (p = 0.02) in the TMZ group. Age at diagnosis (HR 2.83) and treatment with TMZ (HR 0.60) were correlated with OS in the multivariate analysis: treatment with and without TMZ resulted in median OS of 16 months and 11.3 months, respectively. Hematological toxicity grade > II was observed in 2/45 patients and 5/37 patients during simultaneous radiochemotherapy and adjuvant TMZ.

Conclusion: TMZ added to accelerated radiotherapy for GBM resulted in prolonged overall survival with low rates of severe hematological toxicity.