M.D. Brain metastases are one of the most common sites of systemic spread from solid tumors, with an annual incidence of over 100,000 cases. As our oncologic colleagues make dramatic progress in providing more efficacious therapies for patients with solid tumors, the need arises for a group focused on the diagnosis and treatment of brain metastatic disease. The UCLA Metastatic Brain Tumor Program was organized to meet this need. Subspecialists from oncology, radiation oncology, neurology, and neurosurgery have joined together to battle brain metastases. The UCLA Metastatic Brain Tumor Program's goal is to treat metastatic disease focally so as to spare normal brain tissue.
Focal treatment allows retreatment of local and new recurrences.
Our current armamentarium includes surgical excision, radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Surgical excision is the gold standard of treatment for surgically accessible lesions. Patchell first demonstrated the efficacy and superiority of surgical resection followed by radiation over radiation therapy alone in 1990. Bindal demonstrated the efficacy and safety of multiple craniotomies to address multiple metastases in 1993. Bindal later found in 1996 that surgery was clearly superior to radiosurgery.