Belgian Cancer Registry (BCR) has released its first publication focusing on primary brain tumours and other tumours of the central nervous system (CNS) in adults:
"Primary brain and other central nervous system tumours in adults in Belgium 2004-2020"
The report includes epidemiological data by tumour location and behaviour (benign, borderline and malignant).
Every year in Belgium, approximately 2,460 adults (20 years and older) are diagnosed with a primary brain tumour or another CNS tumour. The majority of these diagnoses involve benign tumours (56%), while 37% are malignant and 7% are the less common borderline tumours. Malignant tumours represent 1.3% of the total number of diagnoses of malignant tumours in adults in Belgium. More men are affected by malignant CNS tumours than women, while more benign tumours are diagnosed in women. These tumours include a wide diversity of histological subtypes. Gliomas are the most common malignant tumours (86%), represented mainly by glioblastoma (71%), while meningiomas are the most common benign tumours (61%).
The 5-year survival rate of adults with CNS tumors varies significantly based on tumour behaviour: 97% for benign tumours, 88% for borderline tumours and 22% for malignant tumours. For some specific subtypes of gliomas, there was a substantial improvement in survival rates between 2004 and 2020. For patients diagnosed with anaplastic astrocytoma, the 5-year survival rate increased from 22% in 2004-2009 to 36% in 2016-2020. For patients diagnosed with oligodendroglioma, the 5-year survival rate evolved from 64% in 2004-2009 to 87% in 2016-2020. These improvements of 14 percentage points (pp) and 36 pp, respectively, could be associated with advances in treatments with the addition of chemotherapy to standard radiotherapy. Another encouraging observation is that if a patient survives the first three years after diagnosis of a malignant tumour, the relative survival rate five years later is nearly 71%. Such results based on the conditional 5-year survival rate offer hopeful and insightful information, even for patients with tumours known for their dismal prognosis.
