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
. 2018 Jun 21;13(6):e0198581.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0198581. eCollection 2018.

The association between race and survival in glioblastoma patients in the US: A retrospective cohort study

Andrew Bohn  1 , Alexander Braley  1 , Pura Rodriguez de la Vega  1 , Juan Carlos Zevallos  1 , Noël C Barengo  1
Affiliations

The association between race and survival in glioblastoma patients in the US: A retrospective cohort study

Andrew Bohn et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Background: Glioblastoma is the most common primary brain cancer in adults with an incidence of 3.4 per 100,000, making up about 15% of all brain tumors. Inconsistent results have been published in regard differences in survival between white and black glioblastoma patients. The objective of this to study the association between race and in Glioblastoma patients in the USA during 2010-2014.

Methods and findings: The National Cancer Institute's Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database were used to evaluate race/ethnicity (White non-Hispanic, Black non-Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islanders non-Hispanic (API)) and Hispanic) adults patients with first-time diagnosis of glioblastoma (International Classification of Diseases for Oncology, 3rd Edition [ICD-O-3], codes C711-C714, and histology type 9440/3) from 2010-2014. The primary outcome was 3-year overall survival which was defined as months from diagnosis to death due to any cause and cancer, Kaplan-Meier (KM) and log-rank test were used to compare overall survival times across race groups. Cox proportional hazard models were used to determine the independent effect of race on 3-year survival. Age, gender, health insurance coverage, primary site, tumor size, extent of surgery and year of diagnosis were included in the adjusted model. The 3-year overall survival for API-non Hispanic (NH) patients decreased by 25% compared with White NH glioblastoma patients (hazard ratio (HR) 0.75; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.62-0.90)) after adjusting for age, gender, health insurance, primary site, tumor size, and extent of the surgery. Black NH (HR 0.95; 95% CI 0.80-1.13) and Hispanic (HR 1.01, 95% CI 0.84-1.21) exhibited similar mortality risks compared with White NH patients.

Conclusion: Compared with White NH, API NH with glioblastoma have a better survival. The findings from this study can help increase the accuracy of the prognostic outlook for white, black and API patients with GBM.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Unadjusted Kaplan Meier estimates of 3-year overall survival of glioblastoma patients by race/ethnicity.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Adjusted survival estimates of the 3-year overall survival of glioblastoma patients by race/ethnicity; SEER 2010–2014.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Ostrom QT, Gittleman H, Fulop J, Liu M, Blanda R, Kromer C, et al. CBTRUS Statistical Report: Primary Brain and Central Nervous System Tumors Diagnosed in the United States in 2008–2012. Neuro Oncol. 2015;17(4): iv1–iv62. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Thakkar JP, Dolecek TA, Horbinski C, Ostrom QT, Lightner DD, Barnholtz-Sloan JS, et al. Epidemiologic and molecular prognostic review of glioblastoma. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2014;23: 1985–1996. doi: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-14-0275 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Gittleman H, Lim D, Kattan MW, Chakravarti A, Gilbert MR, Lassman AB, et al. An independently validated nomogram for individualized estimation of survival among patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma: NRG Oncology RTOG 0525 and 0825. Neuro Oncol. 2017;19(5): 669–677 doi: 10.1093/neuonc/now208 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Rhome R, Fisher R, Hormigo A, Parikh RR. Disparities in receipt of modern concurrent chemoradiotherapy in glioblastoma. J Neurooncol. 2016;128: 241–250. doi: 10.1007/s11060-016-2101-5 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Barnholtz-Sloan JS, Sloan AE, Schwartz AG. Racial differences in survival after diagnosis with primary malignant brain tumor. Cancer. 2003;98(3): 603–609. doi: 10.1002/cncr.11534 - DOI - PubMed