AANS Online Scientific Sessions: Tumor-Diagnostic Yield of Biopsy in Corticosteroid Pre-Treated Patients with Primary Central Nervous System Lymphoma

Diagnostic Yield of Biopsy in Corticosteroid Pre-Treated Patients with Primary Central Nervous System Lymphoma

Video Transcription

Video Summary

The video is a presentation on a study regarding the diagnostic yield of biopsy in corticosteroid pre-treated patients with primary central nervous system lymphoma (PC-NSL). The speaker explains that while corticosteroid therapy may hinder histopathological diagnosis in PC-NSL, neurosurgeons often encounter cases where patients have already received corticosteroid treatment. The study is a retrospective multi-center study conducted in four Austrian neurosurgical centers, including patients diagnosed with PC-NSL between January 2004 and September 2018. The objective of the study is to investigate the influence of preoperative corticosteroid therapy on the rate of diagnostic surgeries in PC-NSL. The study includes 143 patients, of which 70 received preoperative corticosteroid therapy. The patients' cohort had a median age of 65 years and mostly suffered from B-cell lymphomas. The study shows that there was no statistically significant difference in the rate of diagnostic surgeries between patients who received preoperative corticosteroid therapy and those who did not. However, patients with a paused preoperative corticosteroid therapy had a delayed surgery and subsequent diagnosis and therapy. The speaker notes that time to surgery became a significant prognostic factor in multivariate testing, potentially influenced by age. In conclusion, preoperative corticosteroid therapy should be avoided if clinically possible, although there may be some limitations to the study's retrospective design.

Asset Subtitle

Florian Scheichel

Keywords

diagnostic yield

corticosteroid pre-treated patients

PC-NSL

retrospective study

preoperative corticosteroid therapy