Outcomes of Patients Undergoing Surgical Resection of a Brain Metastasis: A Cancer Care Nova Scotia Project
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15273/dmj.Vol31No1.4290Abstract
Brain metastases pose a formidable and increasingly common challenge in contemporary cancer care. Current evidence suggests that surgical resection of single brain metastases affords a survival advantage over mainstay treatment of brain metastases with radiotherapy and corticosteroids. Despite advances attained by surgical resection, median survival times remain short, however, and most patients succumb to systemic progression of their cancer within a year following resection.
Patients with a single or solitary, tissue-proven brain metastasis obtained by surgical resection were retrospectively reviewed. Of eligible patients that met inclusion criteria, the mean age at diagnosis of the brain metastasis was 57. Lung cancer was the most common type of cancer producing metastasis to the brain. The most common histologies were adenocarcinoma (17/41; 41.5%) and unspecified carcinoma (12/41; 29.3%). Following resection, the overall median survival was 33.3 weeks. Good performance status and small brain metastasis size were favourable prognostic factors for prolonged survival in this series. The median survival times of patients in this series were slightly inferior, yet comparable to more stringently selected patients in randomized control trials of surgical resection of brain metastases. These comparable results add further support for the use of surgical resection in the treatment of a brain metastasis.
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