OBJECTIVE: New therapeutic agents in combination with the standard Stupp 
protocol (a protocol about the temozolomide combined with radiotherapy treatment 
with glioblastoma was research by Stupp R in 2005) were assessed to evaluate 
whether they were superior to the Stupp protocol alone, to determine the optimum 
treatment regimen for patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma.
PATIENTS AND METHODS: We implemented a search strategy to identify studies in 
the following databases: PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, CNKI, CBM, Wanfang, 
and VIP, and assessed the quality of extracted data from the trials included. 
Statistical software was used to perform network meta-analysis.
RESULTS: The use of novel therapeutic agents in combination with the Stupp 
protocol were all shown to be superior than the Stupp protocol alone for the 
treatment of newly diagnosed glioblastoma, ranked as follows: cilengitide 
2000mg/5/week, bevacizumab in combination with irinotecan, nimotuzumab, 
bevacizumab, cilengitide 2000mg/2/week, cytokine-induced killer cell 
immunotherapy, and the Stupp protocol. In terms of serious adverse effects, the 
intervention group showed a 29% increase in the incidence of adverse events 
compared with the control group (patients treated only with Stupp protocol) with 
a statistically significant difference (RR=1.29; 95%CI 1.17-1.43; P<0.001). The 
most common adverse events were thrombocytopenia, lymphopenia, neutropenia, 
pneumonia, nausea, and vomiting, none of which were significantly different 
between the groups except for neutropenia, pneumonia, and embolism.
CONCLUSIONS: All intervention drugs evaluated in our study were superior to the 
Stupp protocol alone when used in combination with it. However, we could not 
conclusively confirm whether cilengitide 2000mg/5/week was the optimum regime, 
as only one trial using this protocol was included in our study.