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Miscellaneous Metastases

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Abstract

While the majority of cancers metastatic to the central nervous system arise from lung, breast, or melanoma primary tumors, approximately 20–30% arise from other primary tumor sites. In particular, renal cell carcinoma, thyroid tumors, GI cancers (colorectal), germ cell tumors, gynecologic neoplasms (uterine and placental), hematopoietic cancers (lymphoma and leukemia), as well as genitourinary cancers (prostate and bladder) can metastasize to the brain. While these individual histologies rarely metastasize to the CNS, together they represent a sizeable and increasing number of patients as they live longer with improving therapy for their systemic disease and with earlier detection of CNS metastasis. In general, each of these metastases is treated with some combination of whole-brain radiation (WBRT), stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), systemic chemotherapy, intrathecal chemotherapy, or novel agents, such as immunotherapeutics. In this chapter, we will review the evidence for the management of each of these less common metastases to the brain, with a focus also on the emerging treatments and current research in this area.

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Dhawan, A., Peereboom, D. (2020). Miscellaneous Metastases. In: Ahluwalia, M., Metellus, P., Soffietti, R. (eds) Central Nervous System Metastases. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23417-1_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23417-1_23

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