Long-term prognostic assessment of 185 newly diagnosed gliomas - Grade III glioma showed prognosis comparable to that of grade II glioma

Objective: We evaluated the prognoses of newly diagnosed gliomas through WHO Grades II, III and IV to assess the overall tendency of treatment results for glioma in our institute. Furthermore, statistical analysis was performed to determine factors influencing the prognosis. Methods: A total of 185 newly diagnosed glioma patients were operated on from 2000 to 2006. The primary endpoint was the overall survival from the date of surgery. The factors assessed as to whether they influenced the prognosis were the WHO grades of sex, age, location of the lesion, pre-operative Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS), extent of resection and whether or not radiation therapy was performed. Results: The WHO grades influenced the survival significantly (P < 0.0001). The Grades II and III showed no statistically significant difference in survival (P = 0.174), whereas Grades III and IV showed a significant difference (P < 0.0001). The factor influencing survival as well as the grades was the KPS (P < 0.0001). The comparison of survival over WHO grades in the same KPS group was performed for 2 KPS groups (KPS = 100, KPS 80-90), and these also showed significant differences (P = 0.0009 and 0.0143, respectively). Conclusions: Despite the different distributions of the KPS, the Grade III glioma patients showed survival comparable to that of the Grade II. On the other hand, the Grade IV glioma patients showed significantly poorer survival compared with Grade II or III.