Introduction:

Brain tumors are a heterogeneous group given the different cells that originate them. The most frequent brain tumors are those derived from the glia, with astrocytomas being the most common.

Objective:

To systematize the findings of studies that examined multiple prognostic factors for survival in patients with astrocytoma-type brain tumors.

Method:

a systematic review of observational, analytical, prospective studies was carried out. The bibliographic search was carried out in the electronic databases Medline, SciELO, LILACS, PubMed and Google Scholar, with the following descriptive terms: age, sex, prognostic factors, brain cancer, astrocytoma.

Results:

The search found 136,452 articles that were distributed in different databases. When applying the eligibility criteria, 13 articles remained for analysis. In the case of prognostic factors dependent on the lesion, tumor or disease, most researches showed a tendency to evaluate the histologic grade and the histology of the lesion. In the case of the patient-dependent prognoses, there was a greater inclination towards age, sex and the symptoms presented, while in those dependent on the treatment, the treatment modalities suggested to the patients were shown indistinctly: surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Conclusions:

In this research, the main prognostic factors contained in the literature about patients with astrocytic tumors were presented, which are grouped into prognostic factors depending on the tumor, the patient and the treatment. These must be taken into account to evaluate the patient with these brain tumor lesions.

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