A comparison of outcomes after radiosurgery in non-small cell lung cancer patients with one versus more than twenty brain metastases: an international multi-center study
Whether the number or cumulative volume of brain metastases affects survival in patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains controversial. We conducted a volume matched multi-center study to determine whether patients with a single metastasis had better outcomes than patients with > 20 brain metastases.
Between 2014 and 2022, 317 NSCLC patients (21.14% female; single tumor: 278 patients; >20 tumors, 39 patients) underwent stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS). The prescribed margin dose, cumulative tumor volume, 12 Gy volume, and concurrent systematic disease managements were recorded. The overall survival (OS), local tumor control (LTC), adverse radiation effect (ARE) risk, and new tumor development were compared.
No difference in OS was found between patients with > 20 brain metastases and patients with a single metastasis (p = 0.61). Compared to the single tumor cohort, where 217 of 278 (78.06%) patients had no recorded local tumor progression, patients with > 20 brain metastases had a local tumor control rate of 76.92% (p = 0.25). Patients with > 20 tumors had a significantly higher rate of distant tumor development (69.2%) after SRS compared to patients with single tumors (35.3%; **p = 0.024). No significant difference of ARE rate was found.
In this volume matched multi-center study, patients with > 20 tumors showed comparable OS and LTC outcomes compared to patients with single tumors. The number of brain metastases should not be used as a criteria to exclude patients from receiving SRS.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 16 July 2025.
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Altmetric has tracked 31,763,039 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 67th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 4,098 research outputs from this source. They receive a mean Attention Score of 4.6. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 65% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 63 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 66% of its contemporaries.
