emozolomide is effective postoperative chemotherapy for low-grade gliomas, particularly in patients with a specific chromosome deletion, according to an article in the May 22 issue of Neurology.

French researchers studied 149 people with low-grade gliomas who were treated with temozolomide chemotherapy for up to 30 months. Temozolomide reduced the size of brain tumors in 53 percent of participants and stabilized tumor size in 37 percent of patients. However, in 10 percent of the group, tumor size increased by more than 25 percent.

Genetic testing was performed in 86 patients. In 42 percent, chromosome 1p/19q was missing. Patients with the deletion were more likely to respond well to the drug. They also had a longer progression-free survival than patients with normal karyotype and were less likely to die during the study.

"Our findings are consistent with previous smaller studies showing temozolomide as a primary treatment is effective and tolerable, and an added benefit is the discovery that the loss of chromosome 1p/19q predicts how well a person is going to respond to the treatment," said study author Khe Hoang-Xuan, MD, PhD, with the Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital in Paris, France.

However, Hoang-Xuan says evaluating temozolomide against radiotherapy, the standard treatment for such brain tumors, requires prospective research comparing the two treatments.