David A. Reardon, MD

Malignant glioma, the mostcommon primary centralnervous system (CNS) tumorin adults, remains one of the greatesttherapeutic challenges in oncologytoday due to the limited impact ofconventional cytotoxic therapies onoverall survival for patients with thesetumors. Although surgery and external-beam radiotherapy (XRT) can prolongsurvival, the value of adjuvantchemotherapy has been negligible formost malignant glioma patients. Theexception has been those patients withanaplastic oligodendroglioma and accompanyingchromosomal 1p and 19qloss-a fairly uncommon subset ofmalignant glioma patients who respondvery favorably to alkylatorbasedchemotherapy.[1]