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A recent University of Miami study looked at 44 patients with butterfly high-grade gliomas (tumors that cross the corpus callosum and involve both sides of the brain). These tumors can be difficult to safely remove with resection surgery.
In the study, 29 patients received laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT) and 15 had biopsy alone. Median overall survival was 14.9 months with LITT versus 4.9 months with biopsy, and median progression-free survival was 4.7 verses 2.5 months. The researchers reported that larger tumors were harder to ablate completely with LITT, but surprisingly, the amount of tumor ablated or left behind was not associated with survival. Patients whose functional status remained stable or improved after LITT tended to live longer.
While this study was not a comparison between LITT versus conventional resection surgery, it is worth noting the 14.9-month survival with LITT falls within the range typically reported in previous studies of open resection for butterfly gliomas (roughly 7-15 months).
While this was a small retrospective study, the results support further study of LITT as a minimally invasive option for selected patients with butterfly gliomas.