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Role of Palliative Radiotherapy in Brain Metastases

BACKGROUND: Brain metastases are a common manifestation of systemic cancer and exceed primary brain tumors in number and are a significant cause of neurologic problems. They affect 20-40% of all cancer patients. Aggressive management of brain metastases is effective in both symptom palliation and pr...

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Autores principales: Bilimagga, Ramesh S, Nirmala, S, Rishi, Karthik S, Janaki, MG, Ponni, Arul, Rajeev, AG, Kalyan, Suman
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Medknow Publications 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2886217/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20606860
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/0973-1075.53588
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author Bilimagga, Ramesh S
Nirmala, S
Rishi, Karthik S
Janaki, MG
Ponni, Arul
Rajeev, AG
Kalyan, Suman
author_facet Bilimagga, Ramesh S
Nirmala, S
Rishi, Karthik S
Janaki, MG
Ponni, Arul
Rajeev, AG
Kalyan, Suman
author_sort Bilimagga, Ramesh S
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Brain metastases are a common manifestation of systemic cancer and exceed primary brain tumors in number and are a significant cause of neurologic problems. They affect 20-40% of all cancer patients. Aggressive management of brain metastases is effective in both symptom palliation and prolonging the life. Radiotherapy has a major role to play in the management of brain metastases. AIM: The aim of the study was to know the outcome of palliative radiotherapy in symptomatic brain metastases in terms of improvement in their performance status. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a retrospective study of 63 patients diagnosed to have brain metastases and treated with palliative whole brain radiotherapy to a dose of 30 Gy in 10 fractions over two weeks between June 1998 and June 2007. Diagnosis was done in most of the cases with computed tomography scan and in a few with magnetic resonance imaging. Improvement in presenting symptoms has been assessed in terms of improvement in their performance status by using the ECOG scale. RESULTS: Fifty-four patients completed the planned treatment. Eight patients received concurrent Temozolamide; 88% of patients had symptom relief at one month follow-up; 39/54 patients had a follow-up of just one to three months. Hence survival could not be assessed in this study. CONCLUSION: External beam radiotherapy in the dose of 30 Gy over two weeks achieved good palliation in terms improvement in their performance status in 88% of patients. Addition of concurrent and adjuvant Timozolamide may improve the results.
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spelling pubmed-28862172010-07-02 Role of Palliative Radiotherapy in Brain Metastases Bilimagga, Ramesh S Nirmala, S Rishi, Karthik S Janaki, MG Ponni, Arul Rajeev, AG Kalyan, Suman Indian J Palliat Care Original Article BACKGROUND: Brain metastases are a common manifestation of systemic cancer and exceed primary brain tumors in number and are a significant cause of neurologic problems. They affect 20-40% of all cancer patients. Aggressive management of brain metastases is effective in both symptom palliation and prolonging the life. Radiotherapy has a major role to play in the management of brain metastases. AIM: The aim of the study was to know the outcome of palliative radiotherapy in symptomatic brain metastases in terms of improvement in their performance status. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a retrospective study of 63 patients diagnosed to have brain metastases and treated with palliative whole brain radiotherapy to a dose of 30 Gy in 10 fractions over two weeks between June 1998 and June 2007. Diagnosis was done in most of the cases with computed tomography scan and in a few with magnetic resonance imaging. Improvement in presenting symptoms has been assessed in terms of improvement in their performance status by using the ECOG scale. RESULTS: Fifty-four patients completed the planned treatment. Eight patients received concurrent Temozolamide; 88% of patients had symptom relief at one month follow-up; 39/54 patients had a follow-up of just one to three months. Hence survival could not be assessed in this study. CONCLUSION: External beam radiotherapy in the dose of 30 Gy over two weeks achieved good palliation in terms improvement in their performance status in 88% of patients. Addition of concurrent and adjuvant Timozolamide may improve the results. Medknow Publications 2009 /pmc/articles/PMC2886217/ /pubmed/20606860 http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/0973-1075.53588 Text en © Indian Journal of Palliative Care http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Article
Bilimagga, Ramesh S
Nirmala, S
Rishi, Karthik S
Janaki, MG
Ponni, Arul
Rajeev, AG
Kalyan, Suman
Role of Palliative Radiotherapy in Brain Metastases
title Role of Palliative Radiotherapy in Brain Metastases
title_full Role of Palliative Radiotherapy in Brain Metastases
title_fullStr Role of Palliative Radiotherapy in Brain Metastases
title_full_unstemmed Role of Palliative Radiotherapy in Brain Metastases
title_short Role of Palliative Radiotherapy in Brain Metastases
title_sort role of palliative radiotherapy in brain metastases
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2886217/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20606860
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/0973-1075.53588
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