P.130 Clinical prognostic factors in adult intracranial ependymoma patients – A fifty year multi-institutional experience

Abstract

Background: Standard of care treatment for adult intracranial ependymoma patients includes maximal safe surgical resection, while the role for adjuvant radiotherapy remains unclear with existing data from small retrospective series’. Accordingly, we built a multi-institutional cohort to assess the prognostic value of adjuvant radiotherapy and other clinical factors in these patients. Methods: Patients managed for adult intracranial ependymomas from 1968 onwards within the University Health Network in Toronto, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, and The Ottawa Hospital were identified. Multivariate models assessing the prognostic value of clinical factors were built using variables with known prognostic value and/or significance in univariate Cox models. Results: Of 122 ependymomas, 71% were infratentorial, 78% grade two, 55% gross/near-totally resected (GTR/NTR), and 65% treated with adjuvant radiotherapy. Multivariate analyses identified GTR/NTR (vs. subtotal resection; HR=0.2, 95%CI=0.1–0.4, p<0.0001) and cranial (HR=0.5, 95%CI=0.2–1.1) or craniospinal (HR=0.2, 95%CI=0.04–0.5) radiotherapy receipt (p=0.01) as independent statistically significant predictors of more favourable PFS. Grade II pathology (vs. grade III; HR=0.2, 95%CI=0.05–0.6, p=0.006) and GTR/NTR (vs. subtotal resection; HR=0.1, 95%CI=0.03–0.3, p=0.0001) were independent statistically significant predictors of better OS. Conclusions: This work confirms the importance of maximal safe resection for adult intracranial ependymomas and establishes that adjuvant radiotherapy improves progression-free survival in these patients.