Brain metastases is the most common type of intracranial tumor worldwide. Approximately 20-30 percent of all cancer patients develop brain metastases in their life time. Most common cancers spreading to brain are lung, breast,melanoma and renal cell cancer. Brain MRI with contrast helps in diagnosis and to determine the extent of involvement of brain parenchyma. Metastases can be solitary or multiple.
Treatment depends on many factors like performance status, primary histology and disease burden. General treatment includes steroids to improve neurologic symptoms like headache and vomiting. Antiepileptics are given to the reduce the risk of seizures in such patients.
Specific treatment includes whole brain radiation, chemotherapy, targeted therapy and surgery. These days, surgery has been replaced by Stereotactic Radiation (SRS) and cyberknife in which very high dose of radiation is given to tumor thereby Killing the cancer cells just like surgery.
The prognosis depends on many factors. Average life expectancy after brain metastases varies from 6 months to 2 years depending on the primary tumor histology and status of the patient.
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