Clinical profile, treatment and outcome of pediatric brain tumors in Serbia in a 10-year period: A national referral institution experience

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 16; no. 10; p. e0259095
• Main Authors: Stanić, Dragana, Grujičić, Danica, Pekmezović, Tatjana, Bokun, Jelena, Popović-Vuković, Marija, Janić, Dragana, Paripović, Lejla, Ilić, Vesna, Pudrlja Slović, Marija, Ilić, Rosanda, Raičević, Savo, Sarić, Milan, Mišković, Ivana, Nidžović, Borko, Nikitović, Marina
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 26-10-2021; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Abnormalities; Adolescent; Antineoplastic Agents - therapeutic use; Brain; Brain cancer; Brain Neoplasms - mortality; Brain Neoplasms - pathology; Brain Neoplasms - therapy; Brain stem; Brain tumors; Cancer therapies; Care and treatment; Chemotherapy; Child; Child, Preschool; Children; Disease; Diseases; Female; Glioma; Glioma - mortality; Glioma - pathology; Glioma - therapy; Health physics; Health services; Histopathology; Humans; Infant; Infant, Newborn; Localization; Male; Medical imaging; Medical records; Medicine; Medicine and Health Sciences; Multidisciplinary teams; Multivariate analysis; Neurosurgery; Neurosurgical Procedures; Oncology; Patient outcomes; Patients; Pediatrics; Physics; Prognosis; Radiation therapy; Radiotherapy; Risk analysis; Risk factors; Serbia; Surgery; Survival; Survival Rate; Treatment Outcome; Tumors; Serbia
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0259095

This study aimed to evaluate the characteristics of children with primary brain tumors, the effectiveness of treatment modalities, and to detect factors related to the outcome.
A detailed analysis was performed on a series of 173 pediatric patients treated in a Serbian referral oncology institution between 2007 and 2016, based on their clinical, histological, treatment, and follow-up data.
Mean survival time of all children was 94.5months. 2-, 5- and 10-year overall survival probabilities were 68.8%, 59.4%, and 52.8%, respectively. Patients with supratentorial tumors had longer survival than patients with infratentorial tumors and patients with tumors in both compartments (p = 0.011). Children with the unknown histopathology (brainstem glioma) and high-grade glioma had a shorter life than embryonal tumors, ependymoma, and low-grade glioma (p<0.001). Survival of the children who underwent gross total resection was longer than the children in whom lesser degrees of resection were achieved (p = 0.015). The extent of the disease is a very important parameter found to be associated with survival. Patients with no evidence of disease after surgery had a mean survival of 123 months, compared with 82 months in patients with local residual disease and 55 months in patients with disseminated disease (p<0.001). By the univariate analysis, factors predicting poor outcome in our series were the presentation of disease with hormonal abnormalities, tumor location, and the extent of the disease, while the factors predicting a better outcome were age at the time of diagnosis, presentation of the disease with neurological deficit, and type of resection. By the multivariate analysis, the extent of the disease remained as the only strong adverse risk factor for survival (HR 2.06; 95% CI = 1.38-3.07; p<0.001).
With an organized and dedicated multidisciplinary team, the adequate outcomes can be achieved in a middle-income country setting. The presence of local residual disease after surgery and disseminated disease has a strong negative effect on survival.