Hypofractionated stereotactic radiotherapy and radiosurgery for the treatment of patients with radioresistant brain metastases.

AIM To evaluate the efficacy of different radiotherapy treatment modalities in radioresistant brain metastasis. PATIENTS AND METHODS A retrospective analysis was conducted on 78 patients with brain metastases from melanoma, sarcoma, or renal cell carcinoma primary tumours who underwent radiosurgery (20 Gy) and/or hypofractionated stereotactic radiotherapy (6x4 Gy or 7x4 Gy) with or without whole-brain radiotherapy at our Center. RESULTS The actuarial median survival times for melanoma, renal cell carcinoma and sarcoma were 23, 22 and 7 months respectively, with a significant correlation to recursive partitioning analysis class. DISCUSSION Our results show that these treatments were effective both in symptom palliation and in improving survival, suggesting that although outcomes generally remained poor in this study population, it is possible and important to control intracranial brain metastases.