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Younger children with low-grade ganglioglioma more likely to have poorer survival

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SAN FRANCISCO — For children with low-grade ganglioglioma, younger age is correlated with poorer overall survival and children younger than 1 year old are at an increased risk of earlier death, according to a presenter at the American Association of Neurological Surgeons Annual Meeting, here.

“There is something intrinsically different about these tumors along the lines of genetics,” Roy William Roland Dudley, MD, PhD, said.

Using SEER datasets, Dudley and colleagues identified patients 19 years and younger who had a diagnosis of low-grade ganglioglioma. Using the Kaplan-Meier method and log rank tests, they examined the association between treatment characteristics and survival.

Overall, the researchers identified 331 pediatric patients who were diagnosed with low-grade ganglioglioma between 2004 and 2010. The patients were 60% male and 40% female and had a median follow-up of 37 months. They found 62% of the pediatric low-grade ganglioglioma tumors occurred in children younger than 10 years old, with 3% of the tumors seen in children aged younger than 1 year. More than 83% of the tumors were found in Caucasian children, and 60% of the tumors were located in the temporal and frontal lobes. Low-grade ganglioglioma tumors found in the brain stem and spinal cord had worse overall survival, based on the results.

Overall, 91.7% of patients had surgery, with gross total resection performed in 68.5% of patients. Radiation was used in 3% of patients. Dudley said the 5-year survival rate was 96.3%, however, for children less than 1 year old, the 5-year survival was 43.2%. There was also a non-significant trend toward shorter overall survival and tumor-specific survival in children of non-white race and children who needed radiation, he said. – by Kristine Houck, MA, ELS

Reference:

Dudley RWR J. Paper #654. Presented at: American Association of Neurological Surgeons Annual Meeting; April 5-9, 2014; San Francisco.

Disclosure: Dudley has no relevant financial disclosures.