Brain metastases in newly diagnosed colorectal cancer: a population-based study

Role of radiotherapy in the management of brain oligometastases

The management of patients with brain oligometastases is complex and relies on specific reasoning compared to extracranial oligometastases. The levels of evidence are still low because patients with brain oligometastases are frequently excluded from randomized clinical trials. Stereotactic radiotherapy should be preferred in this indication over whole brain irradiation, both for patients with metastases in place and for those who have undergone surgery. The decision of local treatment and its timing must be a multidisciplinary reflection taking into account the histological and molecular characteristics of the tumor as well as the intracranial efficacy of the prescribed systemic treatments. Great caution must be observed when using stereotactic radiotherapy and concomitant systemic treatments because interactions are still poorly documented. We present the recommendations of the French society of radiation oncology on the management of brain oligometastatic patients with radiotherapy.

Nomograms for predicting overall survival in colorectal cancer patients with metastasis to the liver, lung, bone, and brain

BACKGROUND

The aim of this study was to identify the heterogeneous and homogeneous prognostic factors associated with distant metastasis to the liver, lung, bone, and brain in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients and then construct nomograms to predict the prognosis.

METHODS

CRC patients registered in the surveillance, epidemiology, and end results database between 2010 and 2017 were included. A Cox regression model was used to analyse homogeneous and heterogeneous prognostic factors, and Kaplan‒Meier analysis was performed to estimate overall survival (OS). Predictive nomograms were constructed, and their performance was evaluated with C-indexes, calibration curves and the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC).

RESULTS

A total of 37,641 patients with distant metastasis to the liver, lung, bone, and brain were included. The median survival times of patients with liver metastasis, lung metastasis, bone metastasis, and brain metastasis were 12.00 months (95% CI 11.73-12.27 months), 10.00 months (95% CI 9.60-10.41 months), 5.00 months (95% CI 4.52-5.48 months), and 3.00 months (95% CI 2.28-3.72 months), respectively. An older age, higher N stage, elevated carcinoembryonic antigen level, no surgery at the primary site and no/unknown treatment with chemotherapy were identified as homogeneous prognostic factors for the four types of metastases. The calibration curves, C-indexes and AUCs exhibited good performance for predicting the OS of patients with distant metastases to the liver, lung, bone, and brain.

CONCLUSIONS

CRC patients with distant metastasis to the liver, lung, bone, and brain exhibited homogeneous and heterogeneous prognostic factors, all of which were associated with shorter survival. The nomograms showed good accuracy and may be used as tools for clinicians to predict the prognosis of CRC patients with distant metastasis.

Anti-VEGF Therapy Possibly Extends Survival in Patients With Colorectal Brain Metastasis by Protecting Patients From Neurologic Disability

BACKGROUND

Colorectal brain metastases (CBMs) are rare with poor prognosis. There is still no standard systemic treatment for multiple or unresectable CBM. our study aimed to explore the impact of anti-VEGF therapy on overall survival, brain-specific disease control, and neurologic symptom burden in patients with CBM.

METHODS

A total of 65 patients with CBM under treatment were retrospectively enrolled and divided into anti-VEGF based systemic therapy or non-anti-VEGF based therapy. A total of 25 patients who received at least 3 cycles of anti-VEGF agent and 40 patients without anti-VEGF therapy were analyzed by endpoints of overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), intracranial PFS (iPFS) and neurogenic event-free survival (nEFS). Gene expression in paired primary metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC), liver, lung and brain metastasis from NCBI data was analyzed using top Gene Ontology (GO) and cBioPortal.

RESULTS

Patients who treated with anti-VEGF therapy had significantly longer OS (19.5 vs. 5.5 months, P = .009), iPFS (14.6 vs. 4.1 months, P < .001) and nEFS (17.6 vs. 4.4 months, P < .001). Patients who received anti-VEGF therapy beyond any disease progression presented with superior OS (19.7 vs. 9.4 months, P = .039). Top GO and cBioPortal analysis revealed a stronger molecular function of angiogenesis in intracranial metastasis.

CONCLUSIONS

Anti-VEGF based systemic therapy showed favorable efficacy that was reflected in longer overall survival, iPFS and NEFS in patients with CBM.

Single-center study on clinicopathological and typical molecular pathologic features of metastatic brain tumor

BACKGROUND

The metastatic brain tumor is the most common brain tumor. The aim of this study was to demonstrate the clinicopathological and molecular pathologic features of brain metastases (BM).

METHODS

A total of 269 patients were diagnosed with BM through surgical resection at Seoul St. Mary's Hospital from January 2010 to March 2020. We reviewed the clinicopathological features and molecular status of primary and metastatic brain tissues using immunohistochemistry and molecular pathology results.

RESULTS

Among 269 patients, 139 males and 130 females were included. The median age of primary tumor was 58 years (range, 13 to 87 years) and 86 patients (32.0%) had BM at initial presentation. Median BM free interval was 28.0 months (range, 1 to 286 months). The most frequent primary site was lung 46.5% (125/269), and followed by breast 15.6% (42/269), colorectum 10.0% (27/269). Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation was found in 50.8% (32/63) and 58.0% (40/69) of lung primary and BM, respectively. In both breast primary and breast cancer with BM, luminal B was the most frequent subtype at 37.9% (11/29) and 42.9% (18/42), respectively, followed by human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 with 31.0% (9/29) and 33.3% (14/42). Triple-negative was 20.7% (6/29) and 16.7% (7/42), and luminal A was 10.3% (3/29) and 7.1% (3/42) of breast primary and BM, respectively. In colorectal primary and colorectal cancer with BM, KRAS mutation was found in 76.9% (10/13) and 66.7% (2/3), respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

We report the clinicopathological and molecular pathologic features of BM that can provide useful information for understanding the pathogenesis of metastasis and for clinical trials based on the tumor's molecular pathology.

Primary Tumor Resection Provides Survival Benefits for Patients with Synchronous Brain Metastases from Colorectal Cancer

Background: Brain metastases (BMs), particularly synchronous brain metastases, in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients are uncommon. The survival benefit of primary tumor resection (PTR) in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer is controversial. Whether PTR can bring survival benefits to patients with BMs of CRC has not been reported. Methods: From 2010 to 2016, 581 CRC patients with BMs from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database were divided into PTR and non-PTR groups. The log-rank test was used to compare the survival distributions. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate survival. By controlling additional prognostic factors, a Cox proportional multivariate regression analysis was used to estimate the survival benefit of PTR. Results: The median overall survival for CRC patients with synchronous BMs was 3 months, with a 1-year survival rate of 27.2% and a 2-year survival rate of 12.8%. The PTR group contained 171 patients (29.4%), whereas the non-PTR group had 410 patients (70.6%). Patients who underwent PTR had a 1-year survival rate of 40.2% compared to 21.7% in those who did not (p < 0.0001). Cox proportional analysis showed that patients ≥60 years (hazard ratio [HR] 1.718, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.423−2.075, p < 0.0001) had a shorter OS than patients < 60 years of age. OS was better in CEA-negative than in CEA-positive patients (HR 0.652, 95% CI 0.472−0.899, p = 0.009). Patients in whom the primary tumor was removed had considerably improved prognoses (HR 0.654, 95% CI 0.531−0.805, p < 0.0001). Subgroup analysis revealed that the PTR group achieved a survival advantage except for patients with CEA negative. Conclusions: Patients with synchronous BMs from CRC may benefit from primary tumor resection (PTR). Age, CEA level, and PTR were independent prognostic risk factors for CRC patients with synchronous BMs.

Nomogram for predicting occurrence of synchronous liver metastasis in colorectal cancer: a single-center retrospective study based on pathological factors

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to explore the risk factors for synchronous liver metastasis (LM) of colorectal cancer (CRC) and to construct a nomogram for predicting the occurrence of synchronous LM based on baseline and pathological information.

Methods

The baseline and pathological information of 3190 CRC patients were enrolled in the study from the Department of Colorectal Surgery, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University between 2012 and 2020. All patients were divided into development and validation cohorts with the 1:1 ratio. The characters of LM and none-LM patients in newly diagnosed colorectal cancer were utilized to explore the risk factors for synchronous LM with the univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses. A predictive nomogram was constructed by using an R tool. In addition, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves was calculated to describe the discriminability of the nomogram. A calibration curve was plotted to compare the predicted and observed results of the nomogram. Decision-making curve analysis (DCA) was used to evaluate the clinical effect of nomogram.

Results

The nomogram consisted of six features including tumor site, vascular invasion (VI), T stage, N stage, preoperative CEA, and CA-199 level. ROC curves for the LM nomogram indicated good discrimination in the development (AUC = 0.885, 95% CI 0.854–0.916) and validation cohort (AUC = 0.857, 95% CI 0.821–0.893). The calibration curve showed that the prediction results of the nomogram were in good agreement with the actual observation results. Moreover, the DCA curves determined the clinical application value of predictive nomogram.

Conclusions

The pathologic-based nomogram could help clinicians to predict the occurrence of synchronous LM in postoperative CRC patients and provide a reference to perform appropriate metastatic screening plans and rational therapeutic options for the special population.

Brain Metastases from Colorectal Cancer: A Systematic Review of the Literature and Meta-Analysis to Establish a Guideline for Daily Treatment

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common malignancy worldwide. Most patients with metastatic CRC develop liver or lung metastases, while a minority suffer from brain metastases. There is little information available regarding the presentation, treatment, and overall survival of brain metastases (BM) from CRC. This systematic review and meta-analysis includes data collected from three major databases (PubMed, Cochrane, and Embase) based on the key words "brain", "metastas*", "tumor", "colorectal", "cancer", and "malignancy". In total, 1318 articles were identified in the search and 86 studies matched the inclusion criteria. The incidence of BM varied between 0.1% and 11.5%. Most patients developed metastases at other sites prior to developing BM. Lung metastases and KRAS mutations were described as risk factors for additional BM. Patients with BM suffered from various symptoms, but up to 96.8% of BM patients were asymptomatic at the time of BM diagnosis. Median survival time ranged from 2 to 9.6 months, and overall survival (OS) increased up to 41.1 months in patients on a multimodal therapy regimen. Several factors including age, blood levels of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), multiple metastases sites, number of brain lesions, and presence of the KRAS mutation were predictors of OS. For BM diagnosis, MRI was considered to be state of the art. Treatment consisted of a combination of surgery, radiation, or systemic treatment.

Nomogram for predicting occurrence and prognosis of liver metastasis in colorectal cancer: a population-based study

PURPOSE

This study aimed to investigate the prevalence, risk, and prognostic factors for synchronous liver metastasis (LM) in colorectal cancer (CRC) and to construct nomogram for predicting occurrence and prognosis of synchronous LM.

METHODS

A total of 203,998 CRC patients who were registered in the SEER database between 2010 and 2016 were included. Logistic regression was used to analyze risk factors and Kaplan-Meier was used to estimate the overall survival of CRC patients with LM. Potential prognostic factors were identified by multivariable Cox regression. For predicting the risk for development and prognosis in CRC patients with LM, we constructed nomogram and the predictive performance was estimated by the receiver operating characteristics cure, the concordance index, and calibration curve.

RESULTS

In total, 15.3% of the CRC patients (N = 31,288) had synchronous LM. Male gender, black, uninsured status, left colon, T4/T1, and bone and lung metastases were positively associated with synchronous LM risk. The 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year overall survival rate was 49.1%, 18.4%, and 9.2%, respectively. Older age, male gender, black, uninsured status, poor histological differentiation, lymphatic metastasis, T4/T1, positive carcinoembryonic antigen, and lung, bone, and brain metastases were associated with the overall survival. Nomogram was constructed to predict the development and prognosis of synchronous LM and both of them were proved to have good calibration and discrimination.

CONCLUSION

LM is highly prevalent in CRC patients. Nomogram basing on the risk and prognostic factors for synchronous LM was proved to have good performance for predicting the probability of LM occurrence and prognosis.

Nomogram based on homogeneous and heterogeneous associated factors for predicting distant metastases in patients with colorectal cancer

BACKGROUND

The identification of the homogeneous and heterogeneous risk factors for different types of metastases in colorectal cancer (CRC) may shed light on the aetiology and help individualize prophylactic treatment. The present study characterized the incidence differences and identified the homogeneous and heterogeneous risk factors associated with distant metastases in CRC.

METHODS

CRC patients registered in the SEER database between 2010 and 2016 were included in this study. Logistic regression was used to analyse homogeneous and heterogeneous risk factors for the occurrence of different types of metastases. Nomograms were constructed to predict the risk for developing metastases, and the performance was quantitatively assessed using the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve and calibration curve.

RESULTS

A total of 204,595 eligible CRC patients were included in our study, and 17.07% of them had distant metastases. The overall incidences of liver metastases, lung metastases, bone metastases, and brain metastases were 15.34%, 5.22%, 1.26%, and 0.29%, respectively. The incidence of distant metastases differed by age, gender, and the original CRC sites. Poorly differentiated grade, more lymphatic metastasis, higher carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), and different metastatic organs were all positively associated with four patterns of metastases. In contrast, age, sex, race, insurance status, position, and T stage were heterogeneously associated with metastases. The calibration and ROC curves exhibited good performance for predicting distant metastases.

CONCLUSIONS

The incidence of distant metastases in CRC exhibited distinct differences, and the patients had homogeneous and heterogeneous associated risk factors. Although limited risk factors were included in the present study, the established nomogram showed good prediction performance.

Prognostic scoring system for synchronous brain metastasis at diagnosis of colorectal cancer: A population-based study

BACKGROUND

Brain metastasis (BM) from colorectal cancer (CRC) is rarely encountered clinically, and its prognosis has not been fully evaluated.

AIM

To construct a scoring system and accurately predict the survival of patients with synchronous BM at diagnosis of CRC.

METHODS

A retrospective study of 371 patients with synchronous BM from CRC was performed, using the data from 2010 to 2014 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database. Survival time and prognostic factors were statistically analyzed by the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazards models, respectively. A scoring system was developed using the independent prognostic factors, and was used to measure the survival difference among different patients.

RESULTS

For the 371 patients, the median overall survival was 5 mo, survival rates were 27% at 1 year and 11.2% at 2 years. Prognostic analysis showed that age, carcinoembryonic antigen level and extracranial metastasis to the liver, lung or bone were independent prognostic factors. A scoring system based on these three prognostic factors classified the patients into three prognostic subgroups (scores of 0-1, 2-3, and 4). The median survival of patients with scores of 0-1, 2-3 and 4 was 14, 5 and 2 mo, respectively (P < 0.001). Subgroup analysis showed that there were significant differences in prognosis among the groups. Score 2-3 vs 0-1: hazard ratio (HR) = 2.050, 95%CI: 1.363-3.083; P = 0.001; score 4 vs 0-1: HR = 3.721, 95%CI: 2.225-6.225; P < 0.001; score 2-3 vs 4: HR = 0.551, 95%CI: 0.374-0.812; P = 0.003.

CONCLUSION

The scoring system effectively distinguishes long-term and short-term survivors with synchronous BM from CRC. These results are helpful in providing a reference for guiding therapy.

Prognostic factors of brain metastases from colorectal cancer

Background

For brain metastases from non-specific primary tumors, the most frequently used and validated clinical prognostic assessment tool is Karnofsky performance status (KPS). Given the lack of prognostic factors of brain metastases from colorectal cancer (CRC) other than KPS, this study aimed to identify new prognostic factors.

Methods

This retrospective cohort study was conducted at a tertiary care cancer center. Subjects were patients with brain metastases from CRC among all patients who received initial treatment for CRC at the National Cancer Center Hospital from 1997 to 2015 (n = 7147). Prognostic clinicopathological variables for overall survival (OS) were investigated.

Results

There were 68 consecutive patients with brain metastases from CRC, corresponding to 1.0% of all patients with CRC during the study period. Median survival time was 6.8 months. One-year and 3-year OS rates were 28.0 and 10.1%, respectively. Among the six covariates tested (age, KPS, presence of extracranial metastases, control of primary lesion, number of brain metastases, and history of chemotherapy), multivariate analysis revealed KPS (score ≥ 70), number of brain metastases (1–3), and no history of chemotherapy to be independent factors associated with better prognosis.

Conclusions

In addition to KPS, the number of brain lesions and history of chemotherapy were independent prognostic factors for OS in patients with brain metastases from CRC. An awareness of these factors may help gastrointestinal surgeons make appropriate choices in the treatment of these patients.