Brain metastases with an unknown primary: a clinical perspective

✍ Scribed by Libni Eapen; Mylene Vachet; Gordon Catton; Cyril Danjoux; Rebecca McDermot; Bhavani Nair; Andre Girard; Paul Genest; David Stewart; Lee Gerig

• Publisher: Springer US
• Year: 1988
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 321 KB
• Volume: 6
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0167-594X
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00163538

✦ Synopsis

A review of 43 patients with cerebral metastases, an unknown primary, and no other sites of metastases is presented. 27/43 (62.7%) had solitary metastases and 37.2% (16/43) had multiple metastases. Surgical treatment involved complete resection in 30.2%, subtotal resection in 37.2% and biopsy alone or no surgical procedure in the remainder. 39/43 patients underwent whole brain irradiation with the majority receiving 3 000-4 000 rads/10-20 fractions. Overall survival was 52% at six months and 20% at one year, and was significantly better in patients with solitary as opposed to multiple metastases (p < 0.03). A failure analysis including autopsy data demonstrates that (28/41) 68.3% of patients died of progressive intracranial disease without extracerebral metastases. Implications for treatment strategies are discussed.