brain met

[ANGIE1965]

can you tell me how quickly adenemocarcinoma with one tiny met lesion in the rib and one questionable in the tailbone would spread to the brain and if cranial profolactic iradiation would help if the brain mri comes back clean?

[HeinrikMD]

Hi,

At the present time perhaps its best to stay the course and to consider any complementary treatments once other treatments are done, particularly chemotherapy. Chemotherapy has a narrow safety margin – while some diet supplements may have no serious adverse effects by themselves – combining these with drugs with shaky safety profiles may lead to unexpected adverse reactions.

[ANGIE1965]

tODAY WE WENT TO THE RADIO ONCOLOGIST SHE SAID THEY WERE GOING TTO START MY MOM ON HIGH DOSE RADIATION FOR LUNG AND BONE MET 16 TREATMENTS THEN CHEMO RIGHT AFTER ,SHE SAID THAT THEIR HOPE IS TO SHRINK AND STALL THINGS FOR A WHILE, SHE SAID THEY ARE TREATING THIS AS AGRESSIVELY AS SHE IS STILL DOING SO WELL , IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD DO AND ARE THERE ANY COMPLIMENTARY TREATMENTS YOU COULD RECOMEND?THANKS FOR YOUR HELP

[HeinrikMD]

Hi,

The chances fo developing brain metastases from an adenocarcinoma would be about 20%. Such rates would seem to make prophylactic brain radiation a worthwhile thing. However, another issue to raise is that having the relapse exclusively in the brain is not common. This means that it is more likely to develop disease outside the brain (such as getting cancer in the opposite lung) and hence providing treatment for the brain may not really change outcomes. Hence, at present it is unclear how large is the benefit of doing the prophylactic radiation. The development of focused radiation like gamma knife may allow minimum doses to the brain and afford better control of brain metastases if they appear.