• Yoshinori Higuchi, Masaaki Yamamoto, Toru Serizawa, Yasunori Sato, Takashi Shuto, Atsuya Akabane, Hidefumi Jokura, Shoji Yomo, Osamu Nagano, Jun Kawagishi, Kazuhiro Yamanaka, and Hidefumi Aoyama.
• Department of Neurological Surgery, Chiba University Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba, Japan.
• J. Neurooncol. 2019 Sep 1; 144 (2): 393-402.

PurposeStereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) has been increasingly used for elderly patients with brain metastases (BMs). However, no studies based on a large sample size have been reported. To compare SRS treatment results between elderly and non-elderly patients, we performed a subset study of elderly patients using our prospectively-accumulated multi-institution study database (JLGK0901 Study, Lancet Oncol 15:387-395, 2014).MethodsDuring the 2009-2011 period, 1194 eligible patients undergoing gamma knife SRS alone for newly diagnosed BMs were enrolled in this study from 23 gamma knife facilities in Japan. Observation was discontinued at the end of 2013. The 1194 patients were divided into the two age groups, 693 elderly ( ≥ 65 years) and 501 non-elderly ( < 65 years) patients. Our study protocol neither set an upper age limit nor required dose de-escalation.ResultsMedian post-SRS survival time was significantly shorter in the elderly than in the non-elderly patient group (10.3 vs 14.3 months, HR 1.380, 95% CI 1.218-1.563, p < 0.0001). However, regarding all secondary endpoints including neurological death, neurological deterioration, SRS-related complications, leukoencephalopathy, local recurrence, newly-developed tumors, meningeal dissemination, salvage SRS, whole brain radiotherapy and surgery and decreased mini-mental state examination scores, the elderly patient group was not inferior to the non-elderly patient group. In the 693 elderly patients, there was no post-SRS median survival time difference between those with 5-10 versus 2-4 tumors (10.8 vs 8.9 months, HR 0.936, 95% CI 0.744-1.167, p = 0.5601).ConclusionsWe conclude that elderly BM patients are not unfavorable candidates for SRS alone treatment.

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