Health-related quality of life outcomes of surgery for diffuse glioma: A systematic review and pooled analysis.

Background: Although progress has been made in understanding the effects of adjuvant therapy on health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) in diffuse glioma patients, less is known about the impact of surgical resection. To address this, we conducted a systematic review and pooled quantitative analysis. Methods: PubMed, MEDLINE, and Embase were searched for studies measuring HR-QoL before and after surgery for WHO grade 2-4 adult-type diffuse gliomas. Inclusion was limited to prospective cohort studies and trials on adults with ≥1 month of postoperative follow-up. Metric outcomes were assessed with pooled odds, competing risk analysis, and meta-regression using a random effects model. Bias was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale and Cochrane Risk of Bias 2.0 tool. Results: Twelve studies comprising 1000 patients were included. The pooled odds of an unfavorable versus favorable HR-QoL change compared to baseline was not significantly different from 1 within 3 months of surgery (0.843, 95% CI, 0.339-2.100), but significantly less than 1 at final follow-up (0.481, 95% CI, 0.260-0.888). The cumulative incidence of favorable HR-QoL change was significantly higher than that of unfavorable change, with the incidence curves separating after 3 months (χ Conclusion: Surgical resection can maintain or improve HR-QoL, but patients at risk of deterioration should be identified early. Future studies must carefully select and interpret HR-QoL instruments, as preference-based and non-preference-based tools may lack comparability.