ABSTRACT
Patients with gliomas are at risk of cerebrovascular accidents (CVA) with potential consequences on survival, function, and local tumor control. Our objective was to provide information about CVA in patients with gliomas and to estimate survival in this group. We reviewed all adult glioma patients with ischemic CVA at the University of Texas-M.D. Anderson Cancer Center from 2003 through 2014. We extracted demographic, clinical, imaging, treatment and outcome data. We used descriptive summary data and estimated or compared survival rates where appropriate. 60 of 6500 patients (0.1%) with high-grade (HGG, n = 47) or low-grade glioma (LGG, n = 13) had ischemic CVA Thirty-two (53%) patients had postoperative strokes, and 20 (33%) had CVA after 2 weeks of surgery. Forty-one patients (68%) had gross total resection. For HGG and CVA, the poststroke median overall survival was 17 months versus 61 months in LGG and CVA (P = 0.03; hazard ratio (HR): 2.8; 95% CI 1.07-4.60). Survival stratified by modified Rankin Scale grade was significant (X(2) = 9.8, P = 0.007). Five patients received bevacizumab before stroke onset; none responded to antiangiogenic therapy. There was no stroke-related death. At our institution for 10 years, ischemic CVA in glioma patients was a rare complication, clearly associated in half of cases to surgery, and with a variable negative impact on performance status and neurologic function. In this group, patients with more neurological deficits lived less. The survival difference between and within subgroups was most likely due to tumor grade. More research is necessary to improve prevention of postoperative stroke in glioma patients.
Subject(s)
Brain Neoplasms/epidemiology , Glioma/epidemiology , Stroke/epidemiology , Age of Onset , Brain Neoplasms/mortality , Brain Neoplasms/therapy , Cancer Care Facilities , Cohort Studies , Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging , Disease-Free Survival , Female , Glioma/mortality , Glioma/therapy , Humans , Kaplan-Meier Estimate , Magnetic Resonance Imaging , Male , Risk Factors , Severity of Illness Index , Sex Factors , Stroke/mortality , Stroke/therapy , Texas/epidemiology , Tomography, X-Ray ComputedABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The etiology of encephalitis presents a diagnostic challenge and often remains a mystery. However, current technological advances using antibodies can enable a definitive diagnosis in cases that would previously have been suspected to be idiopathic or viral encephalitis. Our objective is to show that tonsil neuroendocrine carcinoma can present initially as limbic encephalitis mediated by N-type calcium channel antibodies and to highlight the diagnostic confusion before cancer detection. METHODS: We report a rare case of neuroendocrine cancer presenting as limbic encephalopathy, Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome and neuropathy. The patient was diagnosed and treated at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in November 2011. RESULTS: Paraneoplastic limbic encephalitis was diagnosed based on clinical presentation of seizures, short-term memory loss, retrograde amnesia, disorientation, distractibility, and abulia; on the exclusion of brain metastases, CNS infection, stroke, metabolic or nutritional deficits, or medication-related events; and on CSF results with inflammatory findings and an abnormal electroencephalography study that showed seizure activity in the left temporal lobe. Serum paraneoplastic panel was positive for P/Q-type calcium channel antibody and N-type calcium channel antibody. Magnetic resonance imaging of brain was unremarkable. CONCLUSION: This case highlights limbic encephalitis as an atypical presentation of neuroendocrine cancer. It also illustrates how treatment of the underlying cancer can reverse limbic encephalitis and Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome in a neuroendocrine carcinoma patient even before the paraneoplastic panel becomes negative.
