Abstract

BACKGROUND: Few prognostic markers are available for NSCLC patients undergoing neurosurgical resection of symptomatic brain metastases.OBJECTIVE: We investigated whether tumor mutation status (EGFR, KRAS, ALK, ROS1, BRAF) and treatment history were associated with survival after neurosurgery.METHODS: We reviewed the electronic health records of 104 NSCLC patients with genomic profiling who underwent neurosurgical resection for symptomatic brain metastases at an academic institution between January 2000 and January 2018. We used multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression models to evaluate the association between overall survival (OS) after neurosurgery and clinico-pathological factors including mutation status.RESULTS: Mean age of patients in this study was 61 (±12) years, and 44% were men. The median OS after neurosurgery was 24 months (95% confidence interval: 18-34). Our multivariate analysis showed that the presence of an EGFR mutation in the tumor was significantly associated with improved OS (hazard ratio [HR] 0.214 p = 0.029), independent of tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) use. Presence of KRAS, ALK, ROS1 and BRAF alterations were not associated with survival (all p > 0.05). Conversely, older age (HR: 1.039; p=0.029), a history of multiple brain irradiation procedures (HR 9.197; p < 0.001) and presence of extracranial metastasis (HR 2.556; p = 0.016) resulted in increased risk of mortality.CONCLUSION: Patients requiring surgical resection of an EGFR mutated NSCLC brain metastasis had an associated improved survival compared to patients without this mutation, independent of TKI use. Decreased survival was associated with older age, multiple prior brain radiation therapies and extracranial metastasis.

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