Efficacy and safety of tumor-treating fields combined with concurrent chemoradiotherapy for newly diagnosed glioblastoma patients

BACKGROUND: Tumour treating fields (TTFields) have demonstrated efficacy in extending survival in the temozolomide maintenance therapy phase. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to investigate the safety and efficacy of TTFields in combination with concurrent chemoradiotherapy for newly diagnosed glioblastoma (GBM) patients, as well as analyzing the prognostic factors for these patients, can provide valuable data to guide the clinical application of TTFields. METHODS: This study retrospectively analyzed the clinical treatment of 68 GBM patients receiving the TTFields, admitted to the Department of Radiation Oncology at Jiangsu Cancer Hospital from September 2021 to October 2024. Progression-free survival (PFS) curves and overall survival were constructed using the Kaplan-Meier method. A Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to assess the effect of TTFields and to account for confounding factors. RESULTS: Among the 68 GBM patients included in the study, the median PFS was 16.4 months (95% CI: 13.3-19.5), the median overall survival was 28.8 months (95% CI: 20.6-37.0) for all 68 patients. The objective response rate was 64.7% (44/68), and the disease control rate was 94.1% (64/68). Multivariate analysis revealed that surgery type and compliance rate with TTFs were favorable prognostic factors. Mild to moderate skin toxicity underneath the transducer arrays occurred in 51.4% of patients. CONCLUSION: In our final analysis of single-center Chinese patients with newly diagnosed GBM, concurrent chemoradiotherapy with TTFields resulted in promising PFS outcomes that warrant validation in propensity-matched or randomized studies.