Radiotherapy Plus Procarbazine, Lomustine, And Vincristine Versus Radiotherapy Alone For Glioma: A Meta-Analysis Of Randomized Controlled Trials

Recent studies have shown that radiotherapy (RT) plus procarbazine, lomustine, and vincristine (PCV) is more effective for the treatment of gliomas than RT alone. The aim of our meta-analysis is to compare the efficacy of RT plus PCV versus RT alone for the treatment of glioma patients after surgery. We searched the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) investigating the curative effect of RT plus PCV versus RT alone for glioma patients after surgery in PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane library. The evaluation indexes including hazard ratios of overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). Individual hazard ratios with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were pooled analyzed. Four RCTs were included with 1,584 patients in this meta-analysis. The results showed that RT plus PCV will had a longer OS (HR = 0.83, 95% CI 0.74-0.94) and a longer PFS (HR = 0.77, 95% CI 0.69-0.87) than RT alone in the treatment of patients with gliomas. RT combined with PCV chemotherapy could improve OS and PFS of patients with glioma after surgery. Further investigations are required to confirm these findings.