What Are The Options For Metastatic Brain Tumour Treatment?

There are various kinds of brain tumours and not all of them are cancerous. Those that are benign may still need significant medical interventions to control or remove them, but for malignant tumours, the need is more pressing. If you have been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour, the prognosis will depend on a range of factors. One is the type and grade of tumour, as some are more aggressive (fast-growing) than others. A second factor is how early diagnosis takes place.

As with any cancer, the prognosis is better the earlier a diagnosis takes place.

Among the particular issues that apply to any cancer, including that which involves brain tumours, is metastasis, or secondary cancer.

Primary cancer is defined as cancer located in the area of origin. Secondary cancer occurs when the cancer cells break away from this location and spread to other parts of the body. They do so either via the lymphatic system or through the bloodstream.

Metastatic cancer is not just about brain cancer spreading elsewhere in the body, however. Often, the reverse can take place, with brain tumours arising as a secondary cancer after the disease initially appears elsewhere.

Where Do Metastatic Brain Tumours Arise From?

Several forms of cancer can commonly give rise to metastatic brain tumours. These include:

• Breast cancer
• Lung cancer
• Melanoma
• Colorectal cancer
• Renal cell carcinoma

When metastatic brain tumours arise, this creates two issues for treatment. The first is to continue to deal with outstanding issues arising from the original cancer, while the second is to apply appropriate treatments to the secondary cancer.

A brain tumour may be treated in a range of ways, including:

• Surgery to remove part or all of it
• Adjuvant radiotherapy to follow up surgery and attack any remaining cancer cells
• Stereotactic radiosurgery to shrink it
• Chemotherapy to shrink the tumour

Because brain tumours require urgent intervention to deal with both the cancer and the additional effects pressure from them may place on the brain, their treatment is always a high priority, whether they are a form of primary cancer or the result of metastasis.

How Is Radiotherapy Used To Treat Metastatic Brain Tumours?

The nature of metastatic brain tumour treatment will vary from patient to patient depending on various circumstances, such as your age, overall health, the prognosis based on the primary cancer and, of particular significance, where the secondary cancer has spread to.

Radiotherapy will commonly be given and, if the cancer has spread widely, it may be given over a wide area or applied to different areas, should the metastatic cancer have appeared in multiple locations across your body.

It is possible, for instance, that the cancer may have spread from its original site not just to the brain but to other places as well.

In some cases, stereotactic radiosurgery may be used if metastatic cancer is located in a limited area and especially if it is adjacent to a sensitive organ, as this will limit any harm caused by the radiation to the organ.

In some cases, a Gamma Knife is used for this purpose, the device delivering very precise, high-powered gamma radiation to a small area.

This can apply to metastasis in many organs around the body, but is particularly true for a brain tumour, where the need to limit radiation exposure to surrounding tissue is most acute and the location of tumours often makes full or even partial removal by surgery difficult or impossible.

What Are the Side Effects Of Metastatic Brain Tumour Treatments?

As with any use of radiotherapy or chemotherapy, metastatic brain tumour treatment can bring some significant side effects. The treatment we provide will aim to minimise these, but they can still be significant.

Among common side effects of radiotherapy are:

• Fatigue
• Sore or itchy skin
• Hair loss
• Loss of appetite and nausea

Chemotherapy side effects include some of the same kinds of symptoms, as well as others, such as:

• Hearing problems such as tinnitus
• Nerve damage to the hands and feet (usually temporary but not always)
• Increased infection risk due to reduced white blood cell production

Many side effects will wear off after a course of treatment ends, such as your hair growing back and your appetite returning.

As with all the treatments we provide, the central focus will be on your needs as a patient. This is particularly important because many cancer patients who come to us have already undergone some unsatisfactory treatment that was not tailored to their needs.

Our approach is to treat everyone as an individual, ensuring that the treatment provided, the schedule for it and the aftercare given are all based on what you need, all while keeping you informed and involved in the process.

Learn more about our advanced radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatments for Metastatic Brain Tumours on the Queen Square website.