Incidence and therapy of brain metastases in patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer

Abstract

Relapse rate and treatment modalities for brain metastases in patients with LA NSCLC treated by concurrent or sequential chemoradiotherapy were evaluated in this study. In the group of 100 patients, 20 patients developed brain metastases (BM) and BM have remained the only site of relapse till death in 11 patients.

Patients survived with median OS 94 days from BM diagnosis. Median time to relapse in brain was 293 days.

Treatment of BM represented external beam radiation in 11 patients with median survival 78 days or gamma-knife in four and surgical resection in two patients with median survival 276 days. Prognosis after BM relapse is poor.

We will recommend to include brain CT scan to the staging procedures and plan to involve prophylactic cranial irradiation to the future randomized multimodality treatment study for the patients with LA NSCLC