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Estimating overall survival of glioblastoma patients using clinical variables, tumor size, and location

Ferles, A; Majewska, P; Holden Helland, R; Kommers, I; Pedersen, A; Tranfa, M; Ardon, H; ... Barkhof, F; + view all (2025) Estimating overall survival of glioblastoma patients using clinical variables, tumor size, and location. Neuro-Oncology Advances , 7 (1) , Article vdaf154. 10.1093/noajnl/vdaf154. Green open access

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Accurate prognosis of glioblastoma is crucial for better-informed treatment decisions, potentially leading to improved disease management. We investigated whether clinical variables, tumor size, and location, can serve as prognostic factors. METHODS: A retrospective, multicenter study enrolled 1318 adult patients with histopathologically confirmed glioblastoma undergoing first-time surgery, with survival censored for 188 patients. Pre-operative brain MRIs were used to compute tumor size and derive advanced radiological features describing tumor location, later refined by expert-based opinion. Post-operative MRIs were used to measure the enhancing residual tumor volume. The prognostic quality of all variables, measurements, and features was assessed as inputs of three survival regression models (CoxPH, Random Survival Forests, DeepSurv) to predict overall survival, under five timepoints of patient treatment: onset presentation, assessment by multidisciplinary board, intervention planning, post-intervention evaluation, and chemoradiotherapy planning. Model evaluation was performed with the C-index, Brier Score over Time, and Integrated Brier Score. RESULTS: Multivariable Cox analysis identified most clinical variables and tumor size as strong predictors of patient survival, with varying hazard ratios across timepoints. DeepSurv was consistently the top performing model under all possible inputs and at all timepoints, yielding mean test C-index scores ranging from 61.71% to 70.29%, and mean Integrated Brier Scores ranging from 8.57% to 7.63%. CONCLUSION: Clinical variables, tumor size, and location carry prognostic value for the overall survival of patients with glioblastoma. The best predictive performance was observed under a Deep Survival model using all variables at the stage of chemoradiotherapy planning.

Type: Article
Title: Estimating overall survival of glioblastoma patients using clinical variables, tumor size, and location
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1093/noajnl/vdaf154
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1093/noajnl/vdaf154
Language: English
Additional information: © The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press, the Society for Neuro-Oncology and the European Association of Neuro-Oncology. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
Keywords: deep neural networks, glioblastoma, magnetic resonance imaging, survival analysis
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10215076
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