Rapid Progression of Gliomatosis Cerebri to Secondary Glioblastoma, Factors That Affect the Progression Rate: A Case Report

Glioblastomas may develop de novo or through progression from low-grade or anaplastic astrocytomas. Primary glioblastomas present as full-blown tumors, with rapid development of clinical symptoms, without clinical, radiological, or histopathological evidence of a less-malignant precursor lesion (1). On the other hand, secondary glioblastomas develop slowly through progression from low-grade diffuse astrocytoma or anaplastic astrocytoma. The mean time for progression from low-grade astrocytoma to secondary glioblastoma was 55 months in a study of secondary glioblastoma (2). Differential diagnosis of these subtypes of glioblastomas is important to therapeutic approaches. The ability to predict the pace of progression from low-grade diffuse astrocytoma to secondary glioblastoma would be clinically very important. Previous studies reported that the factors that cause shortening of the time of progression from low-grade glioma to glioblastoma were events such as TP53 protein mutation, IDH1 gene mutation, and hypoxia (3, 4). However, to the best of our knowledge, there are no radiological case reports of correlation with these factors that shorten the time of progression to secondary glioRapid Progression of Gliomatosis Cerebri to Secondary Glioblastoma, Factors That Affect the Progression Rate: A Case Report ,