Therapeutic effect of 3D conformal radiotherapy for patients with brain metastasis of nonsmall cell lung cancer and their prognosis

Objective To assess the therapeutic effect and adverse reactions of 3D conformal radiotherapy（3D-CRT） for patients with brain metastasis of non-small cell lung cancer（NSCLC） and their prognosis. Methods Sixty-five patients with brain metastasis of NSCLC included in this study.One month after they underwent whole brain radiotherapy（WBRT）at the dose of 40-50Gy/2025F or 40Gy/20F,followed by 60Gy/20F or 40Gy/20F and then adding 20Gy/10F,5 times a week,the clinical outcome and adverse reactions of WBRT in the patients were assessed. Results Of the 65 patients who underwent 3D-CRT,4（6.15%） had CR,23（35.38%） had PR,33（50.77%） had SD,and 5（7.69%） had PD,with a total response rate of 41.54% and a clinical curative rate（CR+PR+SD） of 92.31%.The 1-and 2-year survival rate for the patients was 52.31% and 12.31%,respectively.The main adverse reactions were cerebral edema,acratia,alopecia,bone marrow suppression,impaired hearing and memory,and III-IV nervous system side effect. Conclusion 3D-CRT can prolong the survival time of patients with brain metastasis of NSCLC with tolerable adverse reactions.Boosting 3D-CRT and simple WBRT cannot significantly improve the local control rate of metastasis and overall survival rate of patients.The higher the graded prognostic assessment（GPA） is,the longer the survival time of patients is.The older the patients are,the lower the karnofsky performance scale（KPS） is.The more the number of metastatic foci is,the shorter the survival time of patients is.