Background and objective: To investigate the association of radiochemotherapy-induced cytopenia with sex and its potential effect on survival in patients with glioma.
Methods: We retrospectively analyzed cytopenia during temozolomide-based concomitant radiochemotherapy in 492 patients with glioma. Histologic grading, molecular pathology, surgical procedures, adjuvant chemotherapy subsequent to the radiochemotherapy phase, and overall survival (OS) were recorded. The extent of cytopenia was correlated with sex and outcome.
Results: Treatment-induced severe cytopenia (leukocytopenia, lymphocytopenia, neutropenia, and thrombocytopenia) was more frequent in women than men (44 vs 18%; p = 0.0002). In women with IDH-wt high-grade astrocytomas, there was a negative correlation of severe cytopenia in general and thrombocytopenia in particular during temozolomide radiochemotherapy with OS independent from other predictors (92 [77-111] vs 73 [21-127] weeks; p < 0.05). In men, there was also a trend for this unfavorable effect. In addition, severe cytopenia in all blood cell lineages correlated with reduced temozolomide dose exposure during radiochemotherapy (all p < 0.05 in the total cohort) and reduced dose exposure was independently associated with worse OS (hazard ratios for OS in complete vs reduced temozolomide dose in the total and female cohort 0.66 [0.47-0.92] and 0.4 [0.24-0.69], p < 0.05).
Discussion: Our analysis of treatment-induced cytopenia in a large cohort of patients with glioma confirms that women are at higher risk and demonstrates an association of cytopenia with shortened survival in women.
Classification of evidence: This study provides Class II evidence that women with glioma treated with temozolomide-based concomitant radiochemotherapy have more frequent treatment-induced severe cytopenia than men and that severe myelosuppression correlates with worse OS in women.
© 2022 American Academy of Neurology.