Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Jan 21;110(2):286-96.
doi: 10.1038/bjc.2013.714. Epub 2013 Nov 19.

Relative survival of patients with non-malignant central nervous system tumours: a descriptive study by the Austrian Brain Tumour Registry

A Woehrer  1 , M Hackl  2 , T Waldhör  3 , S Weis  4 , J Pichler  5 , A Olschowski  6 , J Buchroithner  6 , H Maier  7 , G Stockhammer  8 , C Thomé  9 , J Haybaeck  10 , F Payer  11 , G von Campe  12 , A Kiefer  13 , F Würtz  13 , G H Vince  14 , R Sedivy  15 , S Oberndorfer  16 , F Marhold  17 , K Bordihn  18 , W Stiglbauer  19 , U Gruber-Mösenbacher  20 , R Bauer  21 , J Feichtinger  22 , A Reiner-Concin  23 , W Grisold  24 , C Marosi  25 , M Preusser  25 , K Dieckmann  26 , I Slavc  27 , B Gatterbauer  28 , G Widhalm  28 , C Haberler  1 , J A Hainfellner  1 ; Austrian Brain Tumour Registry
Affiliations

Relative survival of patients with non-malignant central nervous system tumours: a descriptive study by the Austrian Brain Tumour Registry

A Woehrer et al. Br J Cancer. .

Abstract

Background: Unlike malignant primary central nervous system (CNS) tumours outcome data on non-malignant CNS tumours are scarce. For patients diagnosed from 1996 to 2002 5-year relative survival of only 85.0% has been reported. We investigated this rate in a contemporary patient cohort to update information on survival.

Methods: We followed a cohort of 3983 cases within the Austrian Brain Tumour Registry. All patients were newly diagnosed from 2005 to 2010 with a histologically confirmed non-malignant CNS tumour. Vital status, cause of death, and population life tables were obtained by 31 December 2011 to calculate relative survival.

Results: Overall 5-year relative survival was 96.1% (95% CI 95.1-97.1%), being significantly lower in tumours of borderline (90.2%, 87.2-92.7%) than benign behaviour (97.4%, 96.3-98.3%). Benign tumour survival ranged from 86.8 for neurofibroma to 99.7% for Schwannoma; for borderline tumours survival rates varied from 83.2 for haemangiopericytoma to 98.4% for myxopapillary ependymoma. Cause of death was directly attributed to the CNS tumour in 39.6%, followed by other cancer (20.4%) and cardiovascular disease (15.8%).

Conclusion: The overall excess mortality in patients with non-malignant CNS tumours is 5.5%, indicating a significant improvement in survival over the last decade. Still, the remaining adverse impact on survival underpins the importance of systematic registration of these tumours.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Competing causes of death among patients with benign and borderline CNS tumours (ABTR, 2005–2010). Cause of death in both categories was most commonly directly attributed to the CNS tumour. The fraction was higher among borderline tumours as compared with benign CNS tumours. Common competing causes of death included other cancer and cardiovascular disease, which were more prevalent among benign CNS tumour patients.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Cumulative relative survival rates of patients with non-malignant CNS tumours over time according to ICD-O3 behaviour codes (ABTR, 2005–2010). Relative survival is inferior in patients with tumours of borderline behaviour (ICD-O3/1) as compared with benign behaviour (ICD-O3/0).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Cumulative relative survival rates for WHO grade I meningioma patients according to histopathological subtype (ABTR, 2005–2010). Patients with meningothelial subtype meningiomas show worse outcome as compared with other common meningioma subtypes (difference not statistically significant).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Cumulative relative survival rates of patients with non-malignant CNS tumours according to age cohorts (ABTR, 2005–2010). Subgroup analysis according to age cohorts shows decreasing survival with increasing age. In elderly patients (75+years) an early drop of the rate is present, which is followed by a secondary incline. This pattern is not seen in other age cohorts.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Bauchet L, Rigau V, Mathieu-Daude H, Figarella-Branger D, Hugues D, Palusseau L, Bauchet F, Fabbro M, Campello C, Capelle L, Durand A, Tretarre B, Frappaz D, Henin D, Menei P, Honnorat J, Segnarbieux F. French brain tumor data bank: methodology and first results on 10,000 cases. J Neurooncol. 2007;84:189–199. - PubMed
    1. Boskos C, Feuvret L, Noel G, Habrand JL, Pommier P, Alapetite C, Mammar H, Ferrand R, Boisserie G, Mazeron JJ. Combined proton and photon conformal radiotherapy for intracranial atypical and malignant meningioma. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2009;75:399–406. - PubMed
    1. Burger EH, Groenewald P, Bradshaw D, Ward AM, Yudkin PL, Volmink J. Validation study of cause of death statistics in Cape Town, South Africa, found poor agreement. J Clin Epidemiol. 2012;65:309–316. - PubMed
    1. Chen CM, Huang AP, Kuo LT, Tu YK.2011Contemporary surgical outcome for skull base meningiomas Neurosurg Rev 34281–296.discussion 296. - PubMed
    1. Cho H, Howlader N, Mariotto AB, Cronin KA.2011Estimating relative survival for cancer patients from the SEER Program using expected rates based on Ederer I versus Ederer II method. Surveillance Research Program NCI Technical Report #2011-01Available at www.surveillance.cancer.gov/reports/ .

LinkOut - more resources