PURPOSE: To assess the survival benefit of palliative hypofractionated radiotherapy in @entity1 with poor prognosis high grade @entity11 by a matched comparison to conventionally treated controls. METHOD: Ninety-two elderly and/or disabled @entity1 with high grade @entity11 with poor prognostic features received palliative partial brain radiotherapy to a dose of 30Gy in six fractions over 2 weeks. @entity1 were matched for WHO histological grade, performance status and age from a cohort of @entity1 treated with conventionally fractionated radiotherapy to a dose of 60Gy in 30 fractions in an Medical Research Council (MRC) BR05 trial. RESULTS: @entity1 treated with hypofractionated radiotherapy had a median survival of 5 months with a 1-year survival rate of 12% from diagnosis. The median survival of case-matched controls was estimated to be 2.5-4.5 months longer. Following hypofractionated radiotherapy, Barthel score was improved or remained stable in 68% of @entity1 . CONCLUSION: Hypofractionated partial brain radiotherapy is a well-tolerated regimen with palliative benefit. Comparison with matched controls suggests lesser survival benefit than would be obtained with radical radiotherapy. However, this is compensated by lower intensity and duration of irradiation induced side effects. It is postulated that there may not be a significant difference in good quality survival or 'quality adjusted survival' between the two regimens and this requires testing in prospective trials.

Hypofractionated radiotherapy for poor prognosis XXXX : matched pair survival analysis with MRC controls.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['patients', 'Patients'] @entity11 :: ('MESH:D005910', 'Disease') :: ['glioma']
@entity11 :: (MESH:D005910,Disease) :: ['malignant glioma']
