Prognostic implication of histological oligodendroglial tumor component: Clinicopathological analysis of 111 cases of malignant gliomas

The favorable prognosis of high-grade oligodendroglial tumor such as glioblastoma (GBM) with oligodendroglioma component (GBMO) has been suggested; however, the studies which examine the prognostic significance of oligodendroglial tumor were limited. In this study, we performed a histopathology-based reevaluation of 111 cases of high grade gliomas according to the latest World Health Organization (WHO), and compared the clinical outcomes between oligodendroglial tumors and pure astrocytic tumors. The survival analysis revealed that the patients with high grade oligodendroglial tumor including GBMO significantly indicated better prognosis compared to the patients with high grade pure astrocytic tumors (GBM and AA, anaplastic astrocytoma) as expected, and the obtained survival curves were almost identical to those from the patients with conventional Grade III or Grade IV tumors, respectively. Moreover, if the cases of oligodendroglial tumor were histopathologically excluded, the patients with AA exhibited extremely poor prognosis which was similar to that of GBM, suggesting that the histological identification of oligodendroglial tumor component, even partially, prescribe the prognosis of high grade glioma patients. This is the prominent report of retrospective clinicopathological analysis for high-grade gliomas throughout Grade III and IV, especially referring to the prognostic value of histological oligodendroglial tumor component; in addition, our results might offer an alternative aspect for the grading of high-grade astrocytic/oligodendroglial tumors.