SynthesisPituitary2025
Efficacy and safety of proton therapy and photon therapy for patients with craniopharyngioma: a systematic review and meta‑analysis.
Synthesis in Pituitary, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Combined surgery and proton radiotherapy in the management of craniopharyngiomas: an update with paradigmatic and challenging case scenarios.Neurosurgical review · 2026Article
- Craniopharyngioma - What's next.Pituitary · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveAccording to existing epidemiological evidence, whether proton therapy is more efficacious and safe than photon therapy in the treatment of craniopharyngioma (CP) remains controversial. This study aimed to evaluate whether proton therapy exhibits better efficacy and safety in terms of survival outcomes and toxic effects than photon therapy.
methodsAn extensive search of pertinent articles published between 1990 and February 2025 was performed in the following four databases: PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and the Cochrane Library. Original studies investigating the efficacy and safety of proton or photon therapy in patients with CP were included. This meta-analysis is reported following the PRISMA reporting guidelines, and data were pooled using a random effects model.
resultsA total of 43 studies on 2784 patients were included in the meta-analysis. The pooled analysis favored proton therapy over photon therapy in terms of 3-year progression-free survival, 5-year progression-free survival, 5-year overall survival, 3-year local control and 5-year local control but not 3-year overall survival. In the safety analysis, compared with photon therapy, proton therapy was associated with reduced probabilities of visual, neurological, cognitive, and other miscellaneous toxicities, whereas the opposite trend was observed for endocrine toxicity. Subgroup analysis indicated that conventional radiation therapy had superior survival outcomes than stereotactic radiosurgery.
conclusionsCompared with photon therapy, proton therapy may be associated with improved survival outcomes and reduced incidence of toxic effects in CP patients. Conventional radiation therapy appears to be more effective than stereotactic radiosurgery.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.