• Jaehyeon Park, Ji Woon Yea, and Jae Won Park.
• Department of Radiation Oncology, Yeungnam University College of Medicine, 170, Hyeonchung-ro, Nam-gu, Daegu, South Korea.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2020 Oct 16; 99 (42): e22721.

BackgroundThe standard treatment for diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is radiotherapy, although conventional fractionated radiotherapy (CFRT) may not be in the best interest of the patient. Instead, hypofractionated radiotherapy (HFRT) may shorten the treatment period and reduce related costs for this treatment, which is typically palliative in nature.MethodsThis systematic review and meta-analysis evaluated survival outcomes among patients who received HFRT or CFRT for DIPG. The PubMed, Medline, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register, and Scopus databases were searched to identify relevant studies. Overall survival was the primary outcome of interest and progression-free survival was the secondary outcome of interest.ResultsThe search identified a total of 2376 reports, although only 4 reports were ultimately included in the meta-analysis. The studies included 88 patients who underwent HFRT and 96 patients who underwent CFRT. Relative to CFRT, HFRT provided comparable outcomes in terms of overall survival (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.07, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.77-1.47) and progression-free survival (HR: 1.04, 95% CI: 0.75-1.45).ConclusionsThe results of this meta-analysis suggest that CFRT and HFRT provide similar survival outcomes for patients with DIPG.

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