Gliosarcomas: Analysis of Braga Hospital Cases and Review of the Literature

Background: Gliosarcomas are very rare tumors of central nervous system, as such, the data of the literature are scarce, which makes its characterization and therapeutic approach more difficult. Methods: A survey about gliosarcomas in Hospital de Braga was carried out between January 1995 and October 2013. A bibliographic review was also carried out. Results: We get a total of 18 cases and the main aim of this study was to evaluate survival according to different variables (age, gender, time symptoms to diagnose, karnofsky, MRI necrosis, MRI mass effect, MRI edema, proximity to the dura-mater, lobar location, hemispheric location, tumor size, gliosarcoma type, macroscopy, type of resection, adjuvant treatment and metastization). The factors associated with a better survival were: age inferior to 50 years old, female gender, karnofsky >80, time symptoms to diagnose <1 month, necrosis <50% tumor volume, midline shift <0.5 cm, edema