Metastatic Disease

Intracranial metastases are the most common brain tumors in adults and outnumber primary brain tumors by 10 to 1. Nearly 200,000 patients are affected every year in the United States, and these metastases have become the most common neurologic complication of cancer. Intracranial metastases are occurring with increased frequency as a result of improved therapies for systemic cancers that extend survival. Most patients with brain metastases have lung cancer as the primary malignancy, followed in frequency by breast, melanoma, renal cell, and thyroid cancers. The prognosis when brain metastases are detected differs on the basis of the underlying cancer type.