Surgical Outcome of Patients With Supratentorial Meningiomas Aged 80 Years or Older-Retrospective International Multicenter Study.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Demographic changes will lead to an increase in old patients, a population with significant risk of postoperative morbidity and mortality, requiring neurosurgery for meningiomas. This multicenter study aims to report neurofunctional status after resection of patients with supratentorial meningioma aged 80 years or older, to identify factors associated with outcome, and to validate a previously proposed decision support tool. METHODS Neurofunctional status was assessed by the Karnofsky Performance Scale (KPS). Patients were categorized in poor (KPS ≤40), intermediate (KPS 50-70), and good (KPS ≥80) preoperative subgroups. Volumetric analyses of tumor and peritumoral brain edema (PTBE) were performed; volumes were scored as small (50 cm3). RESULTS The study population consisted of 262 patients, and the median age at surgery was 83.0 years. The median preoperative KPS was 70; 117 (44.7%) patients were allotted to the good, 113 (43.1%) to the intermediate, and 32 (12.2%) to the poor subgroup. The median tumor and PTBE volumes were 30.2 cm3 and 27.3 cm3; large PTBE volume correlated with poor preoperative KPS status (P = .008). The 90-day and 1-year mortality rates were 9.0% and 13.2%, respectively. Within the first postoperative year, 101 (38.5%) patients improved, 87 (33.2%) were unchanged, and 74 (28.2%) were functionally worse (including deaths). Each year increase of age associated with 44% (23%-70%) increased risk of 90-day and 1-year mortality. In total, 111 (42.4%) patients suffered from surgery-associated complications. Maximum tumor diameter ≥5 cm (odds ratio 1.87 [1.12-3.13]) and large tumor volume (odds ratio 2.35 [1.01-5.50]) associated with increased risk of complications. Among patients with poor preoperative status and large PTBE, most (58.3%) benefited from surgery. CONCLUSION Patients with poor preoperative neurofunctional status and large PTBE most often showed postoperative improvements. The decision support tool may be of help in identifying cases that most likely benefit from surgery

Transaction Synchronization for XML Data in Client-Server Web Applications

GI/OCG-Jahrestagung 2001 in Wien behandelt die Nutzung und Weiterentwicklung von Datenbanktechnologien im World Wide Web, welches zahlreiche spannende Herausforderungen an die Datenverwaltung stellt. Dies betrifft u.a. die Themen der Datenintegration für heterogene Informationsquellen, intelligente Suchverfahren, Metadaten-Verwaltung, Modellierung von Web-Daten und Skalierbarkeit. Besondere Bedeutung kommt dabei der Datenbankunterstützung von XML sowie wichtiger Web-Applikationen wie E-Business, digitale Bibliotheken, Portale etc. zu. Das qualitativ hochstehende Programm setzt sich aus einem eingeladenen Vortrag und neun weiteren Fachbeiträgen zusammen. Als Referent für den Hauptvortra