Abstract
Since the life span of patients with metastatic brain tumors is quite limited, the aim of the treatment is to prolong their useful quality of life with minimally invasive therapeutic modalities. Although gamma knife radiosurgery (GKR) is widely used and accepted as a standard therapeutic modality for treating metastatic brain tumors today, there are still several problems to be clarified. The indication of GKR for metastatic brain tumors is based on the size, number of metastases, the state of primary cancer, systemic metastases, general condition of the patient, the radiosensitivity of primary cancer, the effective dose, etc. Although these problems have already been widely documented, the following recent papers have analyzed them more clearly. It seems that GKR is suitable for a single and solitary metastatic tumor of < 3 cm in diameter, with a Karnofsky Performance Score of > 70%,and there appears to be no limitation concerning the histology of the primary cancer and different radiosensitivity. The papers selected also cover the effect of GKR when combined with surgery and/or whole brain radiotherapy, and the limitations of GKR in the treatment of metastatic brain tumors.
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Papers reviewed
Muacevic A, Kreth FR, Horstmann GA, Schmid-Elsaesser R, Wowra B, Steiger HJ, Reulen HJ (1999) Surgery and radiotherapy compared with gamma knife radiosurgery in the treatment of solitary cerebral metastases of small diameter. J Neurosurg 91:35–43
Cho KH, Hall WA, Gerbi BJ, Higgins PD, Bohen M, Clark HB (1998) Patient selection criteria for the treatment of brain metastases with stereotactic radio-surgery. J Neurooncol 40:73–86
Flickinger JC, Kondziolka D, Lunsford LD (1998) Radiosurgery management of brain metastasis from systemic cancer. In: Lunsford LD, Kondziolka D, Flickinger JC (eds) Gamma knife brain surgery. (Prog Neurol Surg, vol 14) Karger, Basel, pp 145–159
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Further reading
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Takakura, K. Radiosurgery for metastatic brain tumors. Crit Rev Neurosurg 9, 387–393 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/s003290050159
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s003290050159