What is the life expectancy? | Course of a glioblastoma

What is the life expectancy?

The average life expectancy for a glioblastoma is only about ten to fifteen months after diagnosis. This is due to the malignancy and aggressiveness of the tumor. As described above, complete resections are usually not possible and the tumor usually returns within one year despite radiation and chemotherapy.

Since every operation is accompanied by the loss of brain tissue, the maximum of therapy is reached quite soon. In individual cases there are always long-term survivors who survive for years with relatively few side effects and under therapy. However, these are an absolute exception.

Scientists are currently still faced with a great mystery about their survival. The diagnosis of a glioblastoma is always fatal: Almost every patient dies sooner or later from his or her cancer. However, there are some factors that have a positive effect on the outcome of the therapy, which consists of surgery and radiation including chemotherapy.

For example, age is a decisive factor for the survival of a patient: The younger and healthier (i.e. less concomitant diseases) a person is, the more likely it is that a primary therapy will be successful and the longer the patient will survive. In general, it can be said that patients who receive therapy generally have a better survival rate than those who refuse it or cannot perceive it for other reasons. The cellular nature of the tumor also has an impact on its course: there are so-called large and small cell glioblastomas.

The large-cell ones have a slightly more positive prognosis. A genetic component also appears to have an effect on survival, the so-called methylation of the MGMT promoter. This can improve a response to chemotherapy.

However, since this is not always the case, it is currently being further researched to clarify its significance for treatment. The first signs of a negative course of the disease are old age. The prognosis is worse for patients over 50 years of age than for those under 50.

The size of the tumor and, above all, its “behavior” is also important: if a so-called edema, an accumulation of fluid around the tumor, forms, it presses on the surrounding tissue and damages it.The more pronounced the edema is, the more severe the symptoms are often. If the operation is complicated or unsuccessful, the prognosis is also poor. Patients who continue to suffer from neurological symptoms after the operation are unfortunately often severely affected.

The disease status of the patient also has a negative effect on the outcome of the therapy: If many secondary diseases are known and/or the patient is in a poor general condition, a poor course of the operation can be expected. The same applies to the nutritional status. Since many patients lose a lot of weight under the therapy, patients who are poorly or poorly nourished are at a disadvantage.

If a glioblastoma is diagnosed, one must always ask oneself whether it is operable or not. Various factors play a role here. The size and location of the tumor are very important.

If, for example, it is located near vital structures or can only be separated from them with difficulty or not at all, it is called inoperable. It is also always important whether the operation can be expected to improve the patient’s life situation. Sometimes the tumor is located in the brain in such a way that surgery would either not alleviate the symptoms or would even worsen them; in this case, surgery would not be performed either.

If the glioblastoma is declared inoperable, radiation and chemotherapy are usually the only remaining treatment options. However, these are not curative, but are only intended to make the patient more tolerable in the final stage. If the patient’s vital functions deteriorate (breathing, circulation, metabolism), consciousness slowly becomes cloudy (drowsiness, confusion up to coma) and/or is in severe pain, these are often signs that the patient does not have long to live.

The tumor itself is not the critical part, but the neurological failures it causes by displacing the brain tissue make the condition worse. Often, organ failure occurs in the end, in which case the patient dies within a few days.