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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Oncol.

Sec. Neuro-Oncology and Neurosurgical Oncology

Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1644934

Correlation between MGMT methylation and the efficacy of bevacizumab in high-grade glioma

Provisionally accepted
Chengrui  YanChengrui Yan*xuexue  Baixuexue BaiWenbin  MaWenbin MaMing  FengMing Feng
  • Peking Union Medical College Hospital (CAMS), Beijing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Purpose: The aim of this study is to investigate whether the therapeutic efficacy of bevacizumab (BEV) in the treatment of high-grade glioma (HGG) is associated with the methylation status of O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) on the basis of excluding the interference from chemotherapy drugs. Methods: This study included 57 patients with histologically confirmed HGG who, due to various reasons, were unable to complete the standard chemotherapy protocol and thus received BEV treatment. Patients enrolled in the study were divided into two groups based on their MGMT status: the unmethylated MGMT group and the methylated MGMT group. Depending on whether the numerical variables of the patients satisfied a normal distribution, either the T-test or the rank-sum test was employed. For the comparison of categorical variables, the chi-square test was used. Results: After BEV treatment, both PFS and OS were higher in the methylated MGMT group compared to the unmethylated group. Additionally, the tumor control rate was also higher in the methylated group. Furthermore, in both patient groups, a decrease in steroid dosage was observed following BEV treatment, accompanied by an increase in KPS. Multivariate COX regression analysis revealed that radiotherapy and complete tumor resection were significant factors influencing PFS and OS in HGG patients. Additionally, pathological grade was found to influence PFS in HGG patients. Conclusion: Based on the exclusion of the interference from chemotherapy drugs, our study is the first to confirm the correlation between the methylation status of MGMT and the therapeutic effect of BEV on HGG.

Keywords: bevacizumab, high-grade glioma, temozolomide, Methylation, predictor

Received: 11 Jun 2025; Accepted: 08 Aug 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Yan, Bai, Ma and Feng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Chengrui Yan, Peking Union Medical College Hospital (CAMS), Beijing, China

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