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Background: Glioblastoma is the most aggressive and malignant brain tumor, characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity, invasiveness, and resistance to treatment. Patients with glioblastoma have a very poor prognosis despite multimodal interventions. In this study, we investigated how 18F-fluorothymidine (18F-FLT) PET combined with contrast-enhanced MRI and blood metabolomics can contribute to evaluate prognosis and treatment response for patients with glioblastoma.

Methods: Patients, scheduled for surgery due to suspected high-grade glioma were included in this clinical study and underwent four 18F-FLT-PET/MRI examinations prior to surgery and during standard treatment. Blood samples were collected and analyzed by metabolomics. Patients were grouped according to survival as long-time survivors (>3 years) and short-time survivors (<500 days).

Results: Both 2 and 6 weeks into treatment, short-time survivors displayed a significantly larger tumor volume than long-time survivors. When comparing MRI findings during treatment, long-time survivors displayed a substantial tumor decrease, whereas the short-time survivors showed minor or no effect. Regarding 18F-FLT-PET the results were not as unambiguous. Furthermore, there was a clear and significant separation in the metabolomic pattern in blood between the survival groups and across treatment time points.

Conclusions: MRI measures of tumor volume and growth during treatment appear to be prognostic clinical factors that affect outcome. Metabolomic patterns in blood differ significantly between the defined survival groups and may serve as support for an early forecast of prognosis. We also observe a clear separation in metabolite levels between different time points during treatment, which likely reflects treatment effects.

Purpose: This study evaluates the application of a microdialysis technique for interstitial chemotherapy using cisplatin in high-grade glioma.

Method: An in vitro study demonstrated that cisplatin can be administered through retrograde microdialysis and defined the recovery for cisplatin. In a subsequent phase I study, 1–4 microdialysis catheters were implanted in tumor tissue, brain adjacent to tumor (BAT) tissue, and subcutaneous tissue in 10 patients with recurrent high-grade glioma. Cisplatin was administered continuously in daily doses between 0.3 and 3.9 mg for 4 to12 days. Microdialysis samples were continuously collected and analyzed for glucose metabolites, glutamate, glycerol, and cisplatin concentrations. Treatment tolerability was evaluated through clinical monitoring. Quality of life was assessed using the EORTC-QLQ-C30 questionnaire for up to 3 months after treatment.

Results: This in vitro study showed that cisplatin could be administrated with a recovery of 41–97%, depending on flowrate, type of catheter, and cisplatin concentration. During the treatment, patients were exposed to a total dose of 1.2–36.8 mg cisplatin. The concentration of cisplatin in BAT, serum, and subcutaneous tissue was close to detection level in all but two patients. A transient neurologic deterioration due to edema was commonly observed, but no systemic side effects were recorded. After onset of treatment, concentrations of glutamate and glycerol were significantly increased in tumor tissue but not in BAT, with a peak after 3 days, and consistent for the rest of the treatment. Five of the patients survived between 153 and 492 days after treatment.

Conclusion: This phase I study demonstrates that retrograde microdialysis can be used to administer cisplatin interstitially into high-grade glioma tissue. A high cytotoxicity was detected in tumor tissue, but not in the surrounding brain. Retrograde microdialysis appears to be a clinically useful method for intratumoral drug administration in high-grade glioma.

BACKGROUND: High-grade gliomas are associated with poor prognosis. Tumour heterogeneity and invasiveness create challenges for effective treatment and use of systemically administrated drugs. Furthermore, lack of functional predictive response-assays based on drug efficacy complicates evaluation of early treatment responses.

METHODS: We used microdialysis to deliver cisplatin into the tumour and to monitor levels of metabolic compounds present in the tumour and non-malignant brain tissue adjacent to tumour, before and during treatment. In parallel, we collected serum samples and used multivariate statistics to analyse the metabolic effects.

RESULTS: We found distinct metabolic patterns in the extracellular fluids from tumour compared to non-malignant brain tissue, including high concentrations of a wide range of amino acids, amino acid derivatives and reduced levels of monosaccharides and purine nucleosides. We found that locoregional cisplatin delivery had a strong metabolic effect at the tumour site, resulting in substantial release of glutamic acid, phosphate, and spermidine and a reduction of cysteine levels. In addition, patients with long-time survival displayed different treatment response patterns in both tumour and serum. Longer survival was associated with low tumour levels of lactic acid, glyceric acid, ketoses, creatinine and cysteine. Patients with longer survival displayed lower serum levels of ketohexoses, fatty acid methyl esters, glycerol-3-phosphate and alpha-tocopherol, while elevated phosphate levels were seen in both tumour and serum during treatment.

CONCLUSION: We highlight distinct metabolic patterns associated with high-grade tumour metabolism, and responses to cytotoxic cisplatin treatment.

Background

An often debated topic in neuro-oncology are the differences in incidence and survival between men and women with glioma. To the Swedish National Quality Registry for Primary Brain Tumors (SNQR) over 90% of all Swedish patients with primary brain tumor have been reported since 1999. We therefore conducted a study of clinical factors in relation to gender in patients registered with high grade glioma using data from the SNQR.

Methods

The SNQR was searched for patients diagnosed with high grade glioma from 1999 through 2016 and clinical data were analyzed for gender differences regarding prognostic factors, tumor location and survival.

Results

In all 5470 patients were identified, 2268 women and 3202 men, giving a ratio of 1:1.4. We found a survival benefit for women when analyzing the whole time period. While there was no difference in median survival (315 versus 326 days for women versus men), there were significantly more long term survivors among women, with mean survival being 742 versus 628 days (p=0.03). The survival benefit for women was also only present in those being younger than 50 years at diagnosis. We looked at the prognostic factors age, performance status (PS) and surgery in relation to gender. We found that median age for being diagnosed with high grade glioma was significantly higher in women than men (63 versus 62 years, p=0.002) and the ratio of women in relation to men increases with increasing age, the ratios for younger than 50 years being 1:1.5 and over 50 years 1:1.39. A higher fraction of the women are over 60 years when diagnosed compared to men (57% vs 53%, p=0.002). For PS we identified that significantly more women were reported to have PS 3 and for men more PS 0 was registered. For type of surgery we found no gender differences. For tumor location more women had tumors in the frontal and less in the temporal lobe as compared to men.

Conclusion

In the Swedish National Quality Registry for Primary Brain Tumors we identified differences in incidence and survival between men and women related to age and also a disparity regarding PS and tumor location. If the cause of these clinical differences is due to molecular background or has other causes warrants further study.

Background/Aim: Overall survival for glioblastoma patients is short. Standard treatment is surgery followed by radiochemotherapy and adjuvant temozolomide. The aim of this study was to evaluate the outcome for all patients with progressive disease treated with bevacizumab-based treatment combinations in the northern region of Sweden. Patients and Methods: This was a single-center retrospective analysis after bevacizumab-based second-line treatment for malignant glioma. All patients treated with bevacizumab, between 2007 and 2011 in our Center were retrospectively evaluated. Results: Progression-free survival after the start of bevacizumab-based treatment was 20 weeks and overall survival was 31 weeks. Treatment was well tolerated, but 9% of patients (n=6) suffered from serious adverse events. In 68% of patients, a >= 25% decrease in contrast enhancement was seen at best response. Conclusion: Results from this retrospective study are comparable with earlier phase-II. studies and motivate randomized trials of bevacizumab-based treatment in the second-line setting.

In recent years, texture analysis of medical images has become increasingly popular in studies investigating diagnosis, classification and treatment response assessment of cancerous disease. Despite numerous applications in oncology and medical imaging in general, there is no consensus regarding texture analysis workflow, or reporting of parameter settings crucial for replication of results. The aim of this study was to assess how sensitive Haralick texture features of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) MR images are to changes in five parameters related to image acquisition and pre-processing: noise, resolution, how the ADC map is constructed, the choice of quantization method, and the number of gray levels in the quantized image. We found that noise, resolution, choice of quantization method and the number of gray levels in the quantized images had a significant influence on most texture features, and that the effect size varied between different features. Different methods for constructing the ADC maps did not have an impact on any texture feature. Based on our results, we recommend using images with similar resolutions and noise levels, using one quantization method, and the same number of gray levels in all quantized images, to make meaningful comparisons of texture feature results between different subjects.

Background: In this pilot study we evaluated the performance of a substitute CT (s-CT) image derived from MR data of the brain, as a basis for optimization of intensity modulated rotational therapy, final dose calculation and derivation of reference images for patient positioning. Methods: S-CT images were created using a Gaussian mixture regression model on five patients previously treated with radiotherapy. Optimizations were compared using D-max, D-min, D-median and D-mean measures for the target volume and relevant risk structures. Final dose calculations were compared using gamma index with 1%/1 mm and 3%/3 mm acceptance criteria. 3D geometric evaluation was conducted using the DICE similarity coefficient for bony structures. 2D geometric comparison of digitally reconstructed radiographs (DRRs) was performed by manual delineation of relevant structures on the s-CT DRR that were transferred to the CT DRR and compared by visual inspection. Results: Differences for the target volumes in optimization comparisons were small in general, e.g. a mean difference in both D-min and D-max within similar to 0.3%. For the final dose calculation gamma evaluations, 100% of the voxels passed the 1%/1 mm criterion within the PTV. Within the entire external volume between 99.4% and 100% of the voxels passed the 3%/3 mm criterion. In the 3D geometric comparison, the DICE index varied between approximately 0.8-0.9, depending on the position in the skull. In the 2D DRR comparisons, no appreciable visual differences were found. Conclusions: Even though the present work involves a limited number of patients, the results provide a strong indication that optimization and dose calculation based on s-CT data is accurate regarding both geometry and dosimetry.

Background. The Swedish brain tumor registry has, since it was launched in 1999, provided significant amounts of data on histopathological diagnoses and on important aspects of surgical and medical management of these patients. The purpose is mainly quality control, but also as a resource for research.

Methods. Three Swedish healthcare regions, constituting 40% of the Swedish population, have had an almost complete registration. The following parameters are registered: diagnosis according to SNOMED/WHO classification, symptoms, performance status, pre- and postoperative radiology, tumor size and localization, extent of surgery and occurrence of postoperative complications, postoperative treatment, such as radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy, other treatments, complications and toxicity, occurrence of reoperation/s, participation in clinical trials, multidisciplinary conferences and availability of a contact nurse.

Results. Surgical radicality has been essentially constant, whereas the use of early (within 72 hours) postoperative CT and MRI has increased, especially for high-grade glioma, which is a reflection of quality of surgery. Survival of patients with high-grade glioma has increased, especially in the age group 60-69. Patients aged 18-39 years had a five-year survival of 40%. Waiting times for the pathological report has been slightly prolonged. Geographical differences do exist for some of the variables.

Conclusion. Population-based registration is valuable for assessment of clinical management, which could have impact on patient care. As a result of short survival and/or the propensity to affect cognitive functions this patient group has considerable difficulties to make their voices heard in society. We therefore believe that a report like the present one can contribute to the spread of knowledge and increase the awareness for this patient group among caregivers and policy makers.

Aim: To elucidate the impact of different forms of radiation toxicities (esophagitis, radiation pneumonitis, mucositis and hoarseness), on the survival of patients treated with curatively intended radiotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Patients and Methods: Data were individually collected retrospectively for all patients diagnosed with NSCLC subjected to curatively intended radiotherapy (>= 50 Gy) in Sweden during the time period 1990 to 2000.

Results: Esophagitis was the only radiation-induced toxicity with an impact on survival (hazard ratio=0.83, p=0.016). However, in a multivariate model, with clinical-and treatment-related factors taken into consideration, the impact of esophagitis on survival was no longer statistically significant (hazard ratio=0.88, p=0.17).

Conclusion: The effect on survival seen in univariate analysis may be related to higher radiation dose and to the higher prevalence of chemotherapy in this group. The results do not suggest that the toxicities examined have any detrimental effect on overall survival.