New perspectives for the diagnosis and treatment of oligodendroglioma.

Oligodendroglial tumors (OD) constitute a specific type of glioma, with a better prognosis than astrocytic tumors of similar grade. OD are sensitive to chemotherapy, with 60-65% of patients responding to PCV chemotherapy and a median response duration of 1-1.5 years. This holds for both low- and high-grade OD. Despite this high response rate, most if not all patients are ultimately relapsing, requiring improvement of treatment. The presence of chromosomal lesions on the loci 1p36 and 19q13.3 is related to a favorable response to both chemotherapy and radiation therapy. In the near future molecular analysis will become an important tool to identify glial tumors that are likely to respond to treatment and will be used to select patients for clinical trials. Temozolomide appears to be a promising drug in OD.