ArticleNeuro-oncology advances
Hydroxychloroquine and short-course radiotherapy in elderly patients with newly diagnosed high-grade glioma: a randomized phase II trial.
Article in Neuro-oncology advances. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- Systematic review and meta-analysis of the safety of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine from randomized controlled trials on malarial and non-malarial conditions.Systematic reviews · 2021Pooled it
- Safety of hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19 and other diseases: a systematic review and meta-analysis of 53 randomized trials.European journal of clinical pharmacology · 2021Pooled it
- Autophagy modulation in cancer.Nature reviews. Drug discovery · 2026Review
- An overview of autophagy inhibition as a potential clinical strategy in cancer therapy.Molecular pharmacology · 2025Review
- Management of glioblastoma in elderly patients: A review of the literature.Clinical and translational radiation oncology · 2024Review
- Repurposing radiosensitising medicines for radiotherapy: an overview.BMJ oncology · 2024Review
- The role of autophagy in hypoxia-induced radioresistance.Radiotherapy and oncology : journal of the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology · 2023Review
- Upstream open reading frame-encoded MP31 disrupts the mitochondrial quality control process and inhibits tumorigenesis in glioblastoma.Neuro-oncology · 2023Article
- Therapeutic vulnerabilities of cancer stem cells and effects of natural products.Natural product reports · 2023Review
- NRBF2-mediated autophagy contributes to metabolite replenishment and radioresistance in glioblastoma.Experimental & molecular medicine · 2022Article
- An Alternative Pipeline for Glioblastoma Therapeutics: A Systematic Review of Drug Repurposing in Glioblastoma.Cancers · 2021Review
- The Roles of Autophagy and Senescence in the Tumor Cell Response to Radiation.Radiation research · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
15 authors at 10 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundEffective treatment for patients at least 70 years with newly diagnosed glioblastoma remains challenging and alternatives to conventional cytotoxics are appealing. Autophagy inhibition has shown promising efficacy and safety in small studies of glioblastoma and other cancers.
methodsWe conducted a randomized phase II trial to compare radiotherapy with or without hydroxychloroquine (2:1 allocation). Patients aged at least 70 years with newly diagnosed high-grade glioma deemed suitable for short-course radiotherapy with an ECOG performance status of 0-1 were included. Radiotherapy treatment consisted of 30 Gy, delivered as 6 fractions given over 2 weeks (5 Gy per fraction). Hydroxychloroquine was given as 200 mg orally b.d. from 7 days prior to radiotherapy until disease progression. The primary endpoint was 1-year overall survival (OS). Secondary endpoints included progression-free survival (PFS), quality of life, and toxicity.
resultsFifty-four patients with a median age of 75 were randomized between May 2013 and October 2016. The trial was stopped early in 2016. One-year OS was 20.3% (95% confidence interval [CI] 8.2-36.0) hydroxychloroquine group, and 41.2% (95% CI 18.6-62.6) radiotherapy alone, with a median survival of 7.9 and 11.5 months, respectively. The corresponding 6-month PFS was 35.3% (95% CI 19.3-51.7) and 29.4% (95% CI 10.7-51.1). The outcome in the control arm was better than expected and the excess of deaths in the hydroxychloroquine group appeared unrelated to cancer. There were more grade 3-5 events in the hydroxychloroquine group (60.0%) versus radiotherapy alone (38.9%) without any clear common causation.
conclusionsHydroxychloroquine with short-course radiotherapy did not improve survival compared to radiotherapy alone in elderly patients with glioblastoma.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.