The prognosis of patients with brain metastases from SCLC is poor despite years of research.
The response rate to brain irradiation is around 50%, but survival rates are relatively short. In a majority of observations published until now brain metastases were found to be an independent prognostic factor for short survival. However, few individual trials have not found brain metastases to affect survival adversely 1) 2) 3).
In one of these trials the survival rates of the patients with extensive disease with or without brain metastases at the time of diagnosis was done. In this particular study extensive-stage patients with brain metastases and additional sites of metastatic disease had shorter survival compared to those with brain metastases alone (5 vs. 11 months) 4).
There are few studies showing comparable survival rates in patients with only brain metastases to the survival rates achieved in patients with LD 5) 6).