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Vol.43 No.3 contents | Japanese/English |
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- Original Article -
Frequency of Brain Metastasis in Lung Cancer at the Time of Diagnosis
Atsuhiko Tada1,2, Nagio Takigawa1,2, Takuo Shibayama1,2, Ryusei Saito2, Akira Motohiro2, Hazime Maeda2, Shimao Hukai2, Hikotaro Komatsu2, Masaaki Kawahara21Department of Internal Medicine, National Minami-Okayama Hospital, Japan, 2National Chest Hospital Study Group for Lung Cancer, Japan
Objective. To determine the frequency of brain metastasis in lung cancer at the time of diagnosis. Methods. The frequency of brain metastasis at the time of diagnosis was studied retrospectively in 31450 patients with lung cancer (27730 non-small cell carcinomas and 3720 small cell cacinomas) according to clinical tumor status (cT factor) and nodal status (cN factor). Results. Brain metastasis was observed in 1104 (4.0%) patients with non-small cell carcinoma and in 279 (7.5%) patients with small cell carcinoma. In 653 patients with non-small cell carcinoma and 163 patients with small cell carcinoma, there was no other metastatic lesion except brain metastasis. Frequency of brain metastasis was 4.8% in adenocarcinoma, 2.5% in squamous cell carcinoma, 6.4% in large cell carcinoma and 1.7% in adenosquamous cell carcinoma. Frequency of brain metastasis was higher in advanced clinical tumor status and nodal status, especially in non-small cell carcinoma with advanced nodal status. Median survival time (MST) of patients with brain metastasis was 21.4 weeks in non-small cell carcinoma and 28.1 weeks in small cell carcinoma. MST in patients with other metastatic lesions together with brain metastasis was significantly shorter than in patients without other metastatic lesion in both non-small cell carcinoma (24.0 weeks versus 18.4 weeks, p<0.001) and small cell carcinoma (30.7 weeks versus 25.3 weeks, p<0.05). Conclusion. Brain metastasis of lung cancer was observed in 4.0% of patients with non-small cell carcinoma and in 7.5% of patients with small cell carcinoma at the time of diagnosis.
key words: Brain metastasis, Lung cancer, Frequency
Received: November 12, 2002
Accepted: March 19, 2003
JJLC 43 (3): 259-264, 2003
