Chemotherapy of Gliomas : Basic Research, Experiences and Results

Chemotherapy has now become a standard treatment in the management of a whole range of tumours, with relatively well-recognised prospects of success, so that in many diseases there has been a striking improvement in the prognosis, particularly in paediatric oncology.

Unfortunately for a long time our results in the treatment of intrinsic brain tumours have been completely otherwise. If at least in the case of medulloblastomas the efficacy of chemotherapy can be proved, the results with the supratentorial gliomas are strikingly different and inconsistent. Such contradictory findings as regards our results give rise to justifiable doubts regarding chemotherapy for astrocytomas and also, unfortunately for glioblastomas.

In the interdisciplinary setting of the Fourth Mainz Autumnal Congress 1983 the participants endeavoured to define the problems of the gliomas by going back to pathological findings, against the background of basic research and in cooperation with modern clinical methods. They also sought to review the theoretical basis of chemotherapy and to examine and to interpret the fundamental principles and results which have so far been acquired.

In addition, after the deliberations of this meeting we hoped for a pronouncement as to which method of chemotherapy might promise the best results, if our current concept is capable of development or if we going up a blind alley. Finally with our treatment we must access what relationship the side-effects bear to the possible, or even the hoped-for effects, an if we - and this is indeed the most important maxim of all medical treatment - are doing good to our patients or harming them.


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