Central nervous system metastases in epithelial ovarian carcinoma

Five new cases of central nervous system (CNS) metastases from epithelial ovarian cancer are described. They are discovered among 255 patients treated at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical Center, giving an incidence of CNS metastases of 1.96%. All five patients had intraparenchymal brain metastases. It seems likely that the incidence of CNS involvement is increasing in this disease, consonant with improvement of local tumor control and prolonged overall survival. The median duration from the diagnosis of ovarian cancer to the diagnosis of CNS metastases was 25 months (range, 10-126 months). Median survival after diagnosis was 1.3 months (range, 1-10 months). Therapeutic options are discussed, as are possible mechanisms for the occurrence of these metastases.