One Year Follow-up Evaluation of Metastatic Brain Tumors - with Relevant to the Poor Prognosis

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: Prognostic factors of metastatic brain tumors have been widely reported and their operative indications also have been extended gradually even to the poor grade patients. Authors intended to analyze the causative factors for the clinical outcome of metastatic brain tumors, especially with relevant to the poor prognosis by one year follow-up evaluation. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The authors retrospectively studied the clinical characteristics of 46 cases(35 patients) with metastatic brain tumors among 466 cases(437 patients) which were operated on due to the brain tumor, during the period between January 1994 to June 1999. Statistical analysis was performed by using SPSS 8.0(r). A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered clinically significant. RESULT: Among the variable clinical factors in patients with metastatic brain tumors, Karnofsky Performance Scale (KPS) score of less than 70(16 patients), uncontrolled primary tumor(8 patients), and surgical resection without further adjuvant therapy(9 patients) showed statistically significant poor prognosis; p value of 0.002, 0.032, and 0.001, respectively. Other tested variables, such as old age(greater than 65 years; 10 patients), gender(male; 20 patients), type of primary cancer(primary undefined; 6 patients, lung cancer; 15 patients), location(infratentorial; 9 patients, sellar; 5 patients), number of lesion(multiple; 12 patients), and number of operation(multiple craniotomy; 7 patients) were not related to the poor prognosis. CONCLUSIONS: The most common primary site of distant metastasis was lung. The poorer prognosis was highly correlated with various factors including low KPS score(<70), no postoperative adjuvant therapy, and uncontrolled primary tumors.