Surgical management of 39 patients with metastatic brain tumor

Abstract

Objective: In this study, we aimed to investigate the factors that affect surgical outcome and survival duration of the patients with metastatic brain tumors, and compare the literature with our results. Methods: Clinical and radiodiagnostic data of thirty nine patients with metastatic brain tumor who underwent surgery between January 2011 and December 2013 were analyzed, retrospectively. Factors related to the patients, the metastatic lesions and the primary disease were evaluated with respect to postoperative outcome and survival. Results: The mean survival duration relative to prior diagnosis, eloquent location, size and number of the lesions, operative technique, and Recursive Partitioning Analysis (RPA) classes were not different. Nine patients who had lesions in the posterior fossa tended to have a shorter mean survival of 8.3 months compared to those with functional grade I, II, and III lesions. Karn-ofsky Performance Score (KPS) scores significantly improved in 72% of the patients operated. Patients with a KPS score ≥70 at discharge had a mean survival of 9.8 months compared to 4 months of those with a KPS score below 70 at discharge. Conclusion: Patients that were in a higher RPA class tended to have shorter survival in comparison to those in lower classes. Surgical management provided a significantly higher KPS scores at discharge relative to the initial scores. Higher KPS scores at discharge were associated with a longer survival duration unlike the preoperative KPS scores that did not estimate predict the survival duration.