Keywords:
Metastases, Radiation therapy / Oncology, CT, Neuroradiology brain
Authors:
G. Rebella1, N. Romano2, L. R. Saitta2, L. Roccatagliata1, L. Castellan1; 1Genoa/IT, 2Genova/IT
DOI:
10.26044/ecr2019/C-0577
Results
Among 182 patients with evidence of brain metastases we found 31 patients with CBM (17%); 16 of the CBM patients underwent radiotherapic treatment (either whole brain or stereotactic radiosurgery) before the appearance of calcification,
the remaining 15 patients presented with calcification ab initio.
Therefore 8,2% of all patients with brain metastases showed calcification within at least one metastatic lesion. The majority of patients with CBM had a primitive lung adenocarcinoma (66,7%),
followed by breast adenocarcinoma (22,6%) and by lung microcytoma (6,5%),
while none originated from melanoma and from other less common primary tumors,
such as sarcomas,
genitourinary tumours and tumours of the gastroenteric tract. In one patient with Li-Fraumeni syndrome and multiple primitive cancers (breast,
lung and stomach),
we could not identify the primitive tumour responsible for the metastatic disease.
Regarding the type of calcifications most CBM were punctate,
present in one third of the cases,
followed by the the nodular and cluster types and by the far less common ring and coarse types. The different types of calcification were equally distributed between the two CBM groups (ab initio and post-radiotherapy). CBM were single in 14/30 patients and multiple in 16/30.