Real-world results
Invited discussant Matthias Preusser, MD, of the Medical University of Vienna in Austria, said the study shows that “population-based investigations are very valuable and should be further developed so that we can see how treatment patterns vary between countries and what the regional variations are, and whether new treatment standards actually reach clinical practice, and also to see whether there’s an effect on a population basis that is different from what is seen in controlled clinical trials.”
Dr. Preusser said it’s clear from the study that survival is increased with the addition of chemotherapy to radiotherapy, and more patients in the United States than in Europe received the combination during the study period.
Pointing to a treatment algorithm from the European Association of Neuro-oncology published in 2017, Dr. Preusser noted that radiotherapy alone may still be recommended for patients with unfavorable prognostic factors or patients 70 years and older with methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase promoter non-methylated tumors.
“It seems the differences in the age distribution between the U.S. and European populations that were analyzed could be one explanation why the radiochemotherapy combination was applied more often in the U.S. population,” Dr. Preusser said.
No outside funding was used to support the study. Dr. Giusti and coauthors reported having no conflicts of interest. Dr. Preusser disclosed relationships with multiple companies, including Merck, which markets temozolomide under the name Temodar.
SOURCE: Giusti F et al. ESMO 2020. Abstract 365MO.