Chemotherapy as first line treatment for oligodendroglioma

Excerpt

We read with interest the article by Synyach et al. [1] concerning the role of exclusive chemotherapy as first line treatment for oligodendroglioma. The authors retrospectively studied 59 patients with oligodendrogliomas (35 patients with Grade III and 24 with Grade II tumors), that received as first line treatment either exclusively radiotherapy (RT), radio-chemotherapy (RCM) or only chemotherapy (CM). The median progression-free survival (PFS) for the entire cohort of patients was 47 months and median overall survival (OS) was 109 months. There was no significant difference between the treatment groups with regard to PFS and OS. The authors concluded that front-line exclusive chemotherapy results in prolonged OS in patients with confirmed pure oligodendroglioma. …