Radiotherapy for HER 2 Positive Brain Metastases: Urgent Need for a Paradigm Shift.

ABSTRACT: Brain metastases (BMs) are common among patients affected by HER2+ metastatic breast cancer (>30%). The management of BMs is usually multimodal, including surgery, radiotherapy, systemic therapy and palliative care. Standard brain radiotherapy (RT) includes the use of stereotactic radiotherapy (SRT) for limited disease and whole brain radiotherapy (WBRT) for extensive disease. The latter is an effective palliative treatment but has a reduced effect on brain local control and BM overall survival, as it is also associated with severe neurocognitive sequelae. Recent advances both in radiation therapy and systemic treatment may change the paradigm in this subset of patients who can experience long survival notwithstanding BMs. In fact, in recent studies, SRT for multiple BM sites (>4) has show

SUBMITTER: Ippolito E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8946529 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature