MGMT-STP27 methylation status as Predictive Marker for Response to PCV in Anaplastic Oligodendrogliomas and Oligoastrocytomas; A report from EORTC study 26951. Homo sapiens

Purpose: The long-term follow-up results from the EORTC-26951 trial showed that the addition of PCV after radiotherapy increases survival in anaplastic oligodendrogliomas/oligoastrocytomas (AOD/AOA). However, some patients appeared to benefit more from PCV treatment than others. Experimental Design: We performed genome-wide methylation profiling of 115 samples included in the EORTC-26951 trial and extracted the CpG island hypermethylated phenotype (CIMP) and MGMT promoter methylation (MGMT-STP27) status. Results: We first demonstrate that methylation profiling can be performed on archival tissues with a performance that is similar to snap frozen tissue samples. We then performed methylation profiling on EORTC-26951 clinical trial samples. Univariate analysis indicated that CIMP+ or MGMT-STP27 methylated tumors had an improved survival compared to CIMP- and/or MGMT-STP27 unmethylated tumors (median overall survival (OS) 1.05 v. 6.46 years and 1.06 v. 3.8 years, both P<0.0001 for CIMP and MGMT-STP27 status respectively). Multivariable analysis indicates that CIMP and MGMT-STP27 are significant prognostic factors for survival in presence of age, sex performance score and review diagnosis in the model.Multivariate analysis indicates that CIMP and MGMT-STP27 status are prognostic factors for survival independent of age, sex, performance score and review diagnosis. CIMP+ and MGMT-STP27 methylated tumors showed a clear benefit from adjuvant PCV chemotherapy: the median OS of CIMP+ samples in the RT and RT-PCV arms was 3.27 and 9.51 years respectively P=0.0033; for MGMT-STP27 methylated samples it was 1.98 and 8.65 years. There was no such benefit for CIMP- or for MGMT-STP27 unmethylated tumors. MGMT-STP27 status remained significant in an interaction test (P=0.003). Statistical analysis of microarray (SAM) identified 259 novel CpGs associated with treatment response. Conclusions: MGMT-STP27 may be used to guide treatment decisions in this tumor type. Overall design: Bisulphite converted DNA from the 59 samples were hybridised to the Illumina Infinium 450k Human Methylation Beadchip The following sample characteristics are provided; OS: overall survival; PFS: progression free survival; CIMP: CpG Island Methylator phenotype; IGS: Intrinsic Glioma subtype; MGMT: O6-methylguanine-DNA-methyltransferase; OR diagn: original diagnosis; Rev diag: review diagnosis; Tum loc: Tumor location; Perf: Performance score; TRT: treatment Performance is based on the ECOG performance status Tum loc: tumor location indicated by 1: Biopsy; 2: Partial Resection; 3: Total Resection. The MGMT promoter methylation status was determined previously (van den Bent et al, J. Clin Oncol 27: 5881-6, 2009) using MS-MLPA and may differ from the MGMT-SPT27 status. ***Please note that the non-normalized data provided for the records is incomplete, missing data for many probes***