SURGICAL CONSIDERATIONS OF CARCINOMATOUS METASTASES TO THE BRAIN

Abstract

In 1926, Francis Grant, 1 in a review of the forty-nine cases of intracranial malignant metastases which had been seen in the service of Dr. Harvey Cushing up to that year, concluded that Surgery, whether radical or palliative, is of no ultimate benefit to these patients so far as prolongation of life is concerned. He felt justified in making this conclusion because his statistics showed that the average period of survival from hospitalization to death of persons afflicted with such lesions was three months, irrespective of whether the metastases were treated, decompressed or left alone. A further study from the same clinic in 1931 by Meagher and Eisenhardt 2 lent weight to his figures by showing that of the ten cases in which the primary focus lay in the breast, the longest period of survival following operation was five months, the average being six weeks. Since the publication of these