Background: The current retrospective study was undertaken to evaluate the treatment outcomes of patients with meningeal hemangiopericytoma (M-HPC), to define the role of radiotherapy in the management of the disease, and to report on the patterns of failure.
Methods: The medical records of 29 patients with nonmetastatic M-HPC treated at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center (Houston, TX) between August 1979 and March 1999 were reviewed. Fifteen patients (52%) underwent macroscopic total resection ('gross total resection' [GTR]), 10 (34%) underwent subtotal resection (STR), and 4 (14%) had unknown extent of surgery. Ten of 24 patients received adjuvant radiotherapy.
Results: The 5, 10, and 15-year overall survival rates were 85%, 68%, and 43%, respectively. The local control rates at 5 and 10 years were 68% and 22%, respectively. Two patients experienced disease recurrence at another intracranial site. Sixteen patients (55%) developed extraneural metastases. Four patients (14%) developed spinal metastases. The 5-, 10-, and 15-year distant metastasis-free survival rates were 80%, 46%, and 21%, respectively. The 5-year local control rates for patients treated with GTR and STR were 84% and 38%, respectively (P=0.003). Of the 15 patients treated with GTR, 3 received adjuvant radiotherapy as part of their initial treatment. Malignant disease did not recur locally in these three patients. However, the effect of the adjuvant radiotherapy on local control was not statistically significant.
Conclusions: M-HPCs can recur locally or distantly in the neural axis or as extraneural distant metastases. Based on literature review and the patterns of failure in the current series, attempting to perform GTR followed by limited-field radiotherapy appeared to represent a reasonable approach for the initial management of M-HPC.
Copyright 2004 American Cancer Society.