Purpose: Meningiomas occur more frequently in older adults, with the incidence rates increasing from 5.8/100,000 for adults 35-44 years old to 55.2/100,000 for those 85+. Due to the increased risk of surgical management in older adults, there is a need to characterize the risk factors for aggressive disease course to inform management decisions in this population. We therefore sought to determine age-stratified relationships between tumour genomics and recurrence after resection of atypical meningiomas.
Methods: We identified 137 primary and recurrent Grade 2 meningiomas from our existing meningioma genomic sequencing database. We examined the differential distribution of genomic alterations in those older than 65 compared to younger. We then performed an age stratified survival analysis to model recurrence for a mutation identified as differentially present.
Results: In our cohort of 137 patients with grade 2 meningiomas, alterations in NF2 were present at a higher rate in older adults compared to younger (37.8% in < 65 vs. 55.3% in > 65; recurrence adjusted p-value =0.04). There was no association between the presence of NF2 and recurrence in the whole cohort. In the age-stratified model for those less than 65 years old, there was again no relationship. For patients in the older age stratum, there is a relationship between NF2 and worsened recurrence outcomes (HR = 3.64 (1.125 - 11.811); p = 0.031).
Conclusions: We found that mutations in NF2 were more common in older adults. Further, the presence of mutant NF2 was associated with an increased risk of recurrence in older adults.
Keywords: DNA sequencing; Meningioma; molecular genetics.