Abstract

Objective: To retrospectively determine the long-term outcome of adult intracranial and spinal ependymoma patients treated with postoperative radiation therapy after surgery. Methods: Fourteen adult patients who underwent radiotherapy after surgery at a single center between 1999 and 2022 were included. The endpoints analyzed were overall survival and progression-free survival, together with prognostic factors. Results: The median (range) age was 29.5 (23–58) years. The majority (71.4%) of the tumors were located in the spinal canal and gross total resection was performed in nine (64.3%) patients. Six patients were irradiated after recurrence (spinal n=4, intracranial n=2) of whom three had myxopapillary and two had anaplastic histology. Patients were followed up for a median duration of 106.5 (13-172) months. Overall, 4 patients (intracranial n=3, spinal n=1) had recurrences and died after radiotherapy as a direct result of disease progression during the follow-up period. All of these intracranial tumors exhibited anaplastic histology and the spinal tumor was myxopapillary type. Patients with intracranial lesions had a 5-year survival of 50% and no patient was alive on the 10th year, compared with 5- and 10-year overall survival of 87.5 % for patients with spinal tumors. Patients with spinal tumors had a 5- and 10-year progression-free survival rate of 52.5%, while those with intracranial lesions had a rate of 25%. Conclusion: In low-grade spinal ependymomas radiotherapy appears to control disease, even after recurrence. For myxopapillary ependymoma patients, in subtotally resected intracranial and all high-grade tumors, regardless of the extent of resection, adjuvant radiotherapy should be administered.