Resection and Immunotherapy for Recurrent Grade III Glioma

Abstract EN

Background.

Despite surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, the prognosis of relapsed grade III gliomas remains poor.

After promising results of immunotherapy in grade IV gliomas, we investigated its safety and efficacy in recurrent grade III gliomas.

Methods.

Thirty-nine patients received vaccines containing dendritic cells loaded with autologous tumor lysate after tumor resection.

Progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were compared with those obtained after temozolomide (TMZ) treatment as found in the literature.

Results.

Median PFS and OS were 4.6 and 20.5, 3.4 and 18.8, 7.8 and 13.3 months in recurrent grade III astrocytoma, oligodendroglioma, and oligoastrocytoma, respectively.

Compared with TMZ, no grade III/IV toxicity was reported and median OS tended to be higher although there was no difference in median PFS.

The perceived benefit of immunotherapy was more pronounced in astrocytic tumors.

Conclusions.

We provide the first description of immunotherapy in recurrent grade III glioma as safe, promising, and feasible.