The glioblastoma multiforme in Georgia, 1977–1981

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Abstract
To characterize the incidence and mortality of the glioblastoma multiforme as it is seen at the primary care level, a retrospective study was done through the Georgia Tumor Registry on 299 patients with histologically confirmed supratentorial glioblastoma multiformes. Specifically, the age incidence distribution, sex ratio and the postoperative survivals were studied. The Registry also provided the opportunity to define the relative racial frequencies of this neoplasm in a large biracial population. The mean age of the patients at the time of surgery was 58.6 yr and the age group having the highest incidence was 60-74 years. The overall ratio of affected males to females was 1.04:1. The postoperative survival periods were considerably shorter than those reported from large cooperative clinical trials. The overall postoperative survivals at 12 and 24 mo. were only 22% and 4%, respectively. Advancing age had a strong negative relationship with the length of survival such that the 50% survival for patients < 30 yr of age was 17 mo., for those age 30-44 yr it was 10.2 mo., for those age 45-59 it was 5.8 mo. and for those older than 60 it was only 2.2 mo. The study confirmed previous suggestions that the incidence of the neoplasm is considerably higher in whites. There were 2.3 glioblastomas in whites for every 1 in blacks. No difference was noted in the length of survival between whites and blacks.