The Effect of Various Tumor Characteristics on Symptoms Experienced by Glioblastoma Patients
Objective:
Mapping correlations between symptom burden of primary brain tumors (PBT) patients and tumor characteristics may help us map the brain more accurately. Understanding the relationship between characteristics of a tumor and symptom burden will help guide expectations for what type of symptoms patients may face and can help better the overall patient experience.
Background:
Brain tumors exist in a multitude of tumor types, sizes, shapes, and locations, causing an impact on the symptoms arising amongst patients.
Design/Methods:
Using a patient population of all patients seen at the INOVA Schar Neuro-oncology clinic diagnosed with Primary Brain Tumors from March 2020 to September 2023, a retrospective chart analysis was performed to extract data of various neurological demographics about each tumor in addition to the first MDASI-BT survey for each patient.
Results:
Of the 53 people with glioblastoma, fatigue and memory had the highest reported symptom burden, while appearance and seizures had the lowest symptom burden (p<0.001 by ANOVA). Patients with tumors in their temporal lobe and parietal lobe faced higher levels of being distressed (p=0.05). Patients with tumors in the temporal lobe reported more burden from memory loss (p=0.07) and more burden from sadness (p=0.04) than patients with tumors in other areas of the brain. Surprisingly, patients with tumors in their occipital lobe did not have higher levels of burden from vision loss than people with other lobes and the highest burden for vision loss was seen with temporal lobe tumors (p=0.002).
Conclusions:
People with glioblastoma were most burdened by fatigue and least burdened by appearance. Tumor location is associated with pattern of symptoms, but vision is more burdensome with temporal lobe tumors than occipital lobe tumors. Data collection and analysis on the association of tumor size and tumor grade with various symptoms is ongoing.