Prevalence of Brain Metastases Immediately before Prophylactic Cranial Irradiation in Limited Disease Small Cell Lung Cancer Patients with Complete Remission to Chemoradiotherapy: A Single Institution Experience

This single-center study investigated the prevalence of brain metastases immediately before prophylactic cranial irradiation in 40 consecutive limited disease small cell lung cancer complete responders to chemoradiotherapy and revealed that 13/40 (32.5%; 95% confidence interval: 18-47%) patients suffer relapse with brain metastases and show a significantly worse prognosis than those without detected brain metastases.