Pragmatic, Prospective Comparative Effectiveness Trial of Carbon Ion Therapy, Surgery, and Proton Therapy for the Management of Pelvic Sarcomas (Soft Tissue/Bone) Involving the Bone: The PROSPER Study Rationale and Design.

Surgical treatment of pelvic sarcoma involving the bone is the standard of care but is associated with several sequelae and reduced functional quality of life (QOL). Treatment with photon and proton radiotherapy is associated with relapse. Carbon ion radiotherapy (CIRT) may reduce both relapse rates and treatment sequelae. The PROSPER study is a tricontinental, nonrandomized, prospective, three-arm, pragmatic trial evaluating treatments of pelvic sarcoma involving the bone. Patients aged at least 15 years are eligible for inclusion. Participants must have an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Performance Status score of two or less, newly diagnosed disease, and histopathologic confirmation of pelvic chordoma, chondrosarcoma, osteosarcoma, Ewing sarcoma with bone involvement, rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) with bone involvement, or non-RMS soft tissue sarcoma with bone involvement. Treatment arms include (1) CIRT (n = 30) delivered in Europe and Asia, (2) surgical treatment with or without adjuvant radiotherapy (n = 30), and (3) proton therapy (n = 30). Arms two and three will be conducted at Mayo Clinic campuses in Arizona, Florida, and Minnesota. The primary end point is to compare the 1-year change in functional QOL between CIRT and surgical treatment. Additional comparisons among the three arms will be made between treatment sequelae, local control, and other QOL measures.

Postoperative Cavity Stereotactic Radiosurgery for Brain Metastases.

During the past decade, tumor bed stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) after surgical resection has been increasingly utilized in the management of brain metastases. SRS has risen as an alternative to adjuvant whole brain radiation therapy (WBRT), which has been shown in several studies to be associated with increased neurotoxicity. Multiple recent articles have shown favorable local control rates compared to those of WBRT. Specifically, improvements in local control can be achieved by adding a 2 mm margin around the resection cavity. Risk factors that have been established as increasing the risk of local recurrence after resection include: subtotal resection, larger treatment volume, lower margin dose, and a long delay between surgery and SRS (>3 weeks). Moreover, consensus among experts in the field have established the importance of (a) fusion of the pre-operative magnetic resonance imaging scan to aid in volume delineation (b) contouring the entire surgical tract and (c) expanding the target to include possible microscopic disease that may extend to meningeal or venous sinus territory. These strategies can minimize the risks of symptomatic radiation-induced injury and leptomeningeal dissemination after postoperative SRS. Emerging data has arisen suggesting that multifraction postoperative SRS, or alternatively, preoperative SRS could provide decreased rates of radiation necrosis and leptomeningeal disease. Future prospective randomized clinical trials comparing outcomes between these techniques are necessary in order to improve outcomes in these patients.

Central neurocytoma: Clinical characteristics, patterns of care, and survival.

PURPOSE: To investigate clinical characteristics and patterns of care among patients with central neurocytomas in a large cohort of patients. METHODS: The National Cancer Database (NCDB) was queried to identify patients with biopsy confirmed neurocytoma from 2004 to 2015. Patterns of care were described and univariable and multivariable models were performed to investigate the impact of prognostic factors on overall survival. RESULTS: Among 223,404 patients with brain tumors in the NCDB, 868 patients were diagnosed with biopsy-proven neurocytoma and analyzed (0.4% or approximately 75 patients annually). Median age at diagnosis was 31 years and median tumor size was 4-5 cm. Diagnosis was similar between male (49.5%) and female (50.5%). Regarding location, 622 (72%) tumors were intraventricular, 168 (19%) were extra-ventricular, and 78 (9%) overlapping or unspecified. Five-year overall survival among all patients was 89%. On multivariable analysis tumor location, extent of resection, and use of radiation, were not predictive for improved survival (each p > 0.05); however, patient age (p < 0.001), WHO grade (p < 0.001), and medical comorbidity scores (p = 0.002) were independently associated with overall survival. CONCLUSION: Patients with central neurocytoma often present as young adults with sizable tumor burden and are well managed with surgery alone. Considering their favorable survival, efforts to improve tumor control should be carefully weighed against the long-term risks associated with adjuvant therapy like radiation.

Management and Survival of Adult Patients with Pilocytic Astrocytoma in the National Cancer Database.

BACKGROUND: Adult pilocytic astrocytomas (PAs) are relatively rare central nervous system (CNS) tumors with a favorable prognosis. We sought to investigate existing clinical management strategies and overall survival (OS) as a function of various clinical characteristics in a cohort of adult patients with PA. METHODS: The study cohort comprised all patients age >18 years diagnosed with a CNS PA diagnosed between 2004 and 2014 and included in the National Cancer Database. Clinical and treatment-related characteristics were recorded and analyzed for associations with OS following diagnosis using univariate and multivariate analyses. RESULTS: A total of 3057 adult patients, with a median age of 32 years, met the inclusion criteria. At diagnosis, 1138 patients (41%) had cerebral tumors, 832 (30%) had cerebellar tumors, 252 (9%) had tumors of the spinal cord, and 534 (19%) had tumors of unspecified location. More than three-quarters (77%) of the patients underwent surgery alone as local therapy, with the remainder split among surgery plus radiation (11.9%), radiation alone (4.5%), and biopsy alone (6.9%). On multivariate analysis, factors associated with inferior OS included older age (hazard ratio [HR], 1.05; P < 0.001), lower income (P < 0.001), higher Charlson/Deyo score (P = 0.023), larger tumor size (P = 0.023), and radiation therapy technique (P < 0.001; HR, 3.37 for external beam radiation therapy [EBRT]). CONCLUSIONS: Our data provide large-scale prognostic information from a contemporary cohort of patients with PA, confirming that age, median income, Charlson/Deyo Score, and tumor size have significant effects on OS. Although resection status, tumor size, and location likely bias against EBRT, novel therapeutics are clearly needed in patients with tumors not amenable to resection or radiosurgery.