Resection of brain metastases from colorectal carcinoma in 73 patients

At the time of diagnosis of colorectal carcinoma, 2-3% of patients are likely to be harboring brain metastases, and another 10% of patients will develop brain lesions during the course of their disease. The purpose of this study was to examine the clinical course of a group of patients with metastatic brain disease who underwent surgical resection in a single institution. The authors believe this information will be useful for establishing prognostic factors and for clinical decision making.

Between 1974 and 1993, 709 consecutive patients underwent surgical resection of brain metastases at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Seventy-three patients had histologically confirmed colorectal carcinoma. The medical records of these patients were reviewed retrospectively, and the data were analyzed by univariate and multivariate analysis.

The median age of the 43 women and 30 men was 61.5 years. The median interval from the time of diagnosis of the primary tumor and the development of brain metastases was 27.6 months. The primary colorectal tumor was resected in all patients, and the median survival from the day of surgery was 38 months. The median survival from the time of craniotomy was 8.3 months. The 1-year and 2-year survival rates were 31.5% and 6.8%, respectively. Postoperative mortality was 4%. Gender, presence of multiple metastases, presence of lung lesions, and adjuvant brain radiation after craniotomy appeared to have no impact on survival as determined by multivariate Cox analysis. Only the presence of cerebellar brain metastases was associated with decreased survival.

The results of this series, which the authors believe is the largest series of resected brain metastases from colorectal carcinoma published to date, indicate that surgical resection may increase the survival of these patients. Analysis of prognostic factors shows that infratentorial tumor location is associated with a poorer survival compared with supratentorial tumor location (5.1 months vs. 9.1 months; P < 0.002). In patients with recurrent brain disease, repeated resection is a worthwhile consideration because it may prolong survival compared with patients who do not undergo re-resection.