Palliative surgery for brain metastases of malignant melanoma

Forty patients with melanoma brain metastases were treated by surgery. Single brain metastases were found in 32 cases and multiple in eight. The most frequent tumor location was the frontal and frontoparietal lobes. Neurological improvement was observed in 25 patients and surgical mortality rate was less than 5%. The median survival time for all patients was 8 months. When patients with multiple cerebral metastases were excluded the median survival time was 13 months. The 3- and 5-year survival was 25% and 15%, respectively. Seventeen patients with extracerebral metastases received treatment and were without known extracerebral tumor at the time of brain metastases diagnosis. These patients had a median survival time that did not significantly differ from those without occurrence of extracerebral metastases. Quality of life as judged by Karnofsky index was improved after surgery and maintained on an acceptable level for the remaining time of survival.