Treatment strategy for patients with NSCLC with brain metastases in primary care

  Since non-small cell lung cancer, especially lung adenocarcinoma, is prone to early hematogenous metastasis, we encounter more patients with brain metastasis in clinical practice. There are many controversies on how to formulate the treatment strategy for patients with brain metastases and whether to adopt whole cranial radiotherapy at an early stage. My treatment experience is summarized as follows: 1. There are drugs that have been confirmed in the literature to cross the blood-brain barrier: pemetrexed, EGFR-TKI targeting drugs, etc., which have also been confirmed during clinical use.  2, for single metastases in the brain, local treatment with Gamma Knife can be considered, because whole cranial radiotherapy is likely to lead to the decline of the patient’s intelligence, thus affecting the quality of life; and it leaves the opportunity of whole cranial radiotherapy for the possible progression of brain metastases in the future. If the lesion is large, edema is obvious, compression symptoms are obvious, and the lesion in the lung is solitary, surgical resection can also be considered.  3, For patients with NSCLC with multiple brain metastases and no obvious symptoms of increased intracranial pressure in primary treatment, first-line EGFR-TKI targeted drug therapy can be considered if there is a sensitive gene mutation in EGFR. At this time, the drug can be taken first to observe the efficacy of the drug; after 2 to 3 weeks, the brain MRI will be repeated to observe the changes of brain metastases, if the lesions are obviously shrinking, the whole cranial radiotherapy can be disregarded; if the lesions are not shrinking or even increasing, the whole cranial radiotherapy should be given as soon as possible.  4. For patients with NSCLC with multiple brain metastases and obvious symptoms of increased intracranial pressure, for the sake of safety, whole cranial radiotherapy can be performed early.