The glioblastoma multiforme in Georgia, 1977–1981

To characterize the incidence and mortality of the glioblastoma multiforme as it is seen at the primary care level, a retrospective study was done through the Georgia Tumor Registry on 299 patients with histologically confirmed supratentorial glioblastoma multiformes. Specifically, the age incidence distribution, sex ratio, and the postoperative survivals were studied. The Registry also provided the opportunity to define the relative racial frequencies of this neoplasm in a large biracial population. The mean age of the patients at the time of surgery was 58.6 years and the age group having the highest incidence was 60 to 74 years. The overall ratio of affected males to females was 1.04 to 1. The postoperative survival periods were considerably shorter than those reported from large cooperative clinical trials. The overall postoperative survivals at 12 and 24 months were only 22% and 4%, respectively. Advancing age had a strong negative relationship with the length of survival such that the 50% survival for patients less than 30 years of age was 17 months, for those age 30 to 44 years it was 10.2 months, for those age 45 to 59 it was 5.8 months, and for those older than 60 it was only 2.2 months. The study confirmed previous suggestions that the incidence of the neoplasm is considerably higher in whites. There were 2.3 glioblastomas in whites for every one in blacks. No difference was noted in the length of survival between whites and blacks.