Peritumoural Oedema as a Predictor of Overall Survival for Patients with Posterior Fossa Metastases

To analyse the relationship between peritumoural oedema volume and tumour volume in relation to the impact of metastatic posterior fossa tumour survival rates.

An observational study.

Umraniye Training and Research Hospital, İstanbul, Turkey, from 2011-2021.

Fifty-six cancer patients who had been operated upon for cerebellar metastases were analysed retrospectively. To investigate the effect of oedema on survival, patients with a single cerebellar metastasis were evaluated retrospectively. Those patients had a single metastasis located in the cerebellum and did not receive radiotherapy or corticosteroids before surgery. OsiriX MD DICOM viewer was used to calculate the volumes of the tumour and the oedema using fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) and contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The patients were separated into two groups, and the cut-off limit for the oedema to-tumour ratio was set to two. Survival analysis was performed on the two groups.

When the primary sites of the tumours were evaluated, 60.7% were located in the lungs (n = 34), 10.7% were located in the breasts (n = 6), 10.7% were located in the gastrointestinal tract (n = 6), 7.1% were located in the renal region (n = 4), 5.4% were located in the gynaecologic tract (n = 3), and 5.4% were located in other parts of the body (n = 3). A univariate analysis showed that overall survival duration was significantly longer in the subgroup with breast cancer (83.3%) and in those patients with a peritumoural oedema volume to tumour volume ratio of less than two (27.6%, p <0.05). Negative prognostic factors were lung cancer and high peritumoural oedema volume.

Significant peritumoural oedema was linked to a poor prognosis for cancer patients with a single cerebellar metastasis, especially with lung cancer as the primary source.

Cerebellar metastases, Cerebellum, OsiriX MD, Tumour volume.