Socioeconomic and educational factors interference in the prognosis for glioblastoma multiform

Abstract

Background. To compare the survival of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) patients operated on at public hospital with that of patients operated on at the private hospitals. Method. We carried out a retrospective analysis of the patients’ medical records, the surgical reports and the pre- and post-operative images of patients with a histopathological confirmed adult supratentorial GBM. Sixty-three patients were treated at public hospital and twenty-one at private hospitals. Results. The present study revealed that the survival of patients treated in private hospitals was statistically superior to that of patients treated in public hospitals (11.9 vs. 7.7). Conclusions. Our study advances towards the confirmation of the hypothesis that socioeconomic and educational factors influence the Karnofsky Performance Score (KPS) and the performance of radiotherapy treatment, with negative effects over the GBM patients’ survival.

Keywords::

• Educational factors
• socioeconomic factors
• glioblastoma
• gliomas
• Karnofsky
• radiotherapy

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.