Distribution of brain metastases: low-risk metastasis areas may be avoided when treating with whole-brain radiotherapy

OBJECTIVE: Previous work has demonstrated that metastases are not uniformly distributed across the brain. This study aims to determine there are low-risk brain metastasis (BM) areas that may be avoided during whole-brain radiotherapy (WBRT) to reduce neurocognitive toxicity. METHODS: Clinical and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data of 991 metastases in 192 patients with advanced cancer were analyzed retrospectively. Eleven anatomically defined regions of interest (ROIs) were contoured, and the locations of the BMs were recorded. Using the same definition, ROIs were contoured in 20 healthy volunteers.The proportions of patients with BMs in different ROIs, proportion of BMs, and proportion of different ROI volumes relative to the total volume were calculated. RESULTS: The proportion of observed BMs was lower than expected in the brainstem, insula, diencephalon and internal structures, corpus callosum, and pituitary gland. The proportion of BMs was significantly higher than expected in the parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and cerebellum. For those patients with single BM, there was very low rate of low-risk ROIs involvement (0%), with 2–4 BMs, 6–13% of the patients had low-risk ROIs involvement, with ≥5 BMs, significant (> 30%) of the patients had low-risk ROIs involvement. CONCLUSION: The brainstem, insula, diencephalon and internal structures, corpus callosum, and pituitary gland demonstrate low risk for metastatic involvement. Involvement of low risk areas occurs in patients with more than 1 BM.