METHODS
Radiotherapy was administered to 24 patients (20 males (83.4%), 4 females (16.6%), age range 24-75 years) as 10 Gy fraction doses with 10 days intervals for a total of 30 Gy tumour dose in 3 fractions. Antiedema treatment was given to all patients. Karnofsky performance status was 70 for one patient and below 70 for the rest of the patients. Multiple metastases were present in 79.2% of the patients, in 20.8% of the patients there was single lesion and histophatologic diagnosis was present only for this group. 50% of the patients had hemiplegia, 45.8% had hemiparesia, 4.2 % had quadriplegia and 6 patients (25%) had other additional pathologies. Treatment was started at the day of admission for 13 patients.
RESULTS
The total and partial reliefs in neurological symptoms were seen in 8.3% and 37.5% of patients, respectively. Median survival from diagnosis of brain lesions was 2.87 months. The six months, 1 and 2 years survival rates were 33.3%, 8.33%, and 8.33%, respectivel y. The prognosis of patients with brain metastases is poor and have similar survival rates from the other poor performance patients (KPS<70).
CONCLUSION
As a conclusion, short course hypofractionated radiotherapy might be adviced to the patients with poor prognosis.
Keywords: Brain neoplasms/radiotherapy; dose fractionation; brain metastases/prognosis/survival analysis/survival rate
