The benefit of early surgery on overall survival in incidental low grade glioma patients: a multicenter study

International audienceBackground: The role of surgery for incidentally discovered diffuse low-grade gliomas (iLGGs) is debatable and poorly documented in current literature.Objective: The aim was to identify factors that influence survival for patients that underwent surgical resection of iLGGs in a large multicenter population.Methods: Clinical, radiological, and surgical data were retrospectively analyzed in 267 patients operated for iLGG from 4 neurosurgical Centers. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify predictors of overall survival (OS) and tumor recurrence (TR).Results: The OS rate was 92.41%. The 5- and 10-year estimated OS rates were 98.09% and 93.2% respectively. OS was significantly longer for patients with a lower preoperative tumor volume (p=0.001) and higher extent of resection (EOR) (p=0.037), regardless the WHO defined molecular class (p=0.2). In the final model, OS was influenced only by the preoperative tumor volume (p=0.006), while TR by early surgery (p=0.028). A negative association was found between preoperative tumor volumes and EOR (rs = -0.44, p