Abstract

PURPOSE
Brain metastasis is estimated to occur in 20 to 40% of cancer patients, and meningeal involvement has been reported in 5% to 8% of cancer patients. Even if the prognosis is grave, standard treatment modality of brain metastasis or leptomeningeal carcinomatosis has not been established. We evaluated the prognosis and the clinical features of the brain and leptomeningeal metastasis of the breast cancer.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The 43 patients who was diagnosed as brain parenchymal metastasis or leptomeningeal carcinomatosis clinically, radiologically and/or cytologically were included in this study. The median age was 44(range: 27-61) years.
RESULTS
The median duration from brain metastasis to death was 181 days(range: 8~1599), and the median duration from leptomeningeal carcinomatosis to death was 39 days(range: 25~152). Age(p=0.7174) and number of brain metastatic lesion(p=0.4097) did not influence the survival, but the presence of other systemic metastatic lesion affected the survival(p 0.0224). When we compared the survival rates of patients according to treatment modality, the patients with systemic chemotherapy versus patients without systemic chemotherapy showed differences(p= 0.0009). Patients treated with whole brain radiation only versus patients with whole brain radiation and other systemic management also showed different survival rate(p=0.0009). But intrathecal chemotherapy had no effect on survival. Well differentiated, solitary lesions were treated by operation and/or gamma-knife surgery, and their effects were good.
CONCLUSION
Prolongation of survival was suggested with whole brain radiotherapy combined with systemic treatment in brain or leptomeningeal metastasis. Further study is expected to confirm this finding.

• Keywords: Brain metastasis;Leptomeningeal carcinomatosis;Breast cancer