Raut S, Samala SK, Prusty SK. Glioblastoma in the post-2021 era: Diagnostic recalibration, therapeutic innovations, and future horizons. World J Clin Oncol 2026; 17(6): 118209 [DOI: 10.5306/wjco.118209]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Sagar Raut, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Radiotherapy and Oncology, PGIMER Satellite Centre, Patiala Road, Sangrur 148001, Punjab, India. snraut161@gmail.com
Research Domain of This Article
Oncology
Article-Type of This Article
review-article
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Oncol. Jun 24, 2026; 17(6): 118209 Published online Jun 24, 2026. doi: 10.5306/wjco.118209
Glioblastoma in the post-2021 era: Diagnostic recalibration, therapeutic innovations, and future horizons
Santosh K Prusty, Sai Kumar Samala, Sagar Raut
Sagar Raut, Department of Radiotherapy and Oncology, PGIMER Satellite Centre, Sangrur 148001, Punjab, India
Sagar Raut, Department of Radiation Oncology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Raipur 492099, Chhattīsgarh, India
Sai Kumar Samala, Department of Neurosurgery, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030, United States
Santosh K Prusty, Department of Radiotherapy, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai 400012, Mahārāshtra, India
Author contributions: Raut S and Samala SK designed the report and conducted the literature review; Raut S and Prusty SK analyzed the data and wrote the paper. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
AI contribution statement: ChatGPT was used for language polishing and writing assistance.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors have no conflicts of interest related to the manuscript.
Corresponding author: Sagar Raut, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Radiotherapy and Oncology, PGIMER Satellite Centre, Patiala Road, Sangrur 148001, Punjab, India. snraut161@gmail.com
Received: December 28, 2025 Revised: March 5, 2026 Accepted: April 7, 2026 Published online: June 24, 2026 Processing time: 177 Days and 23.3 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: The management of glioblastoma (GBM) has entered a post-2021 era characterized more by convergent advances in molecular classification, trial design, and immunoengineering than by a single therapeutic breakthrough. The 2021 WHO Central Nervous System 5 redefinition of GBM as an isocitrate dehydrogenase-wildtype entity has altered clinical trial interpretation, diagnosis, and prognosis. Molecularly selected targeted therapies, improved tumor treating fields, and a deliberate shift away from ineffective single-agent immunotherapy toward combinatorial and neoadjuvant approaches are driving incremental progress, even though conventional chemoradiation continues to be the cornerstone of care. Locoregionally administered, multivalent engineered cell therapies, along with developments in liquid biopsy, spatial profiling, and adaptive platform trials, provide the most convincing indications of future impact. When taken as a whole, these advancements highlight a move in GBM treatment paradigms toward precision-guided, biologically informed, and adaptive approaches.
