Multidisciplinary brain metastasis clinic: is it effective and worthwhile?

Background: Management of brain metastasis is a complex multidisciplinary venture. Hence, we started a multidisciplinary brain metastasis clinic for the opinion on difficult brain metastasis cases. This is the review of the impact of this clinic on the treatment decisions.

Methods: The brain metastasis clinic (BMC) was started in April 2018 and meets once a week. Data of patients discussed between 27th April 2018 and 28th June 2019 were included for this analysis. Treatment decision made by clinicians (before sending the patient to the BMC) was compared with the decisions made in BMC. The decisions were broken on a predefined proforma as the intent of treatment (curative or palliative), modalities planned (surgery, radiation, chemotherapy) and type of therapy planned (details of each therapy) in each modality were collected both pre and post BMCs. In addition, compliance of the respective physicians to BMC decision was also calculated. SPSS version 20 was used for analysis. Descriptive statistics were performed.

Results: Ninety-nine patients were discussed in this time period. The median age was 51 (range 17-68) years. The gender distribution was 70 males (70.7%) and 29 females (29.3%). Lung was the predominant site of malignancy (79, 79.8%). Thirty-one patients (31.3%) had EGFR TKI domain activating mutation, while 17 (17.2%) had anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) rearrangement. The treatment plan was changed in 46 patients (46.5%). The intent of treatment was changed from palliative to curative in 5%. Change in the treatment plan with respect to surgery in 9.1%, radiation in 37.4%, chemotherapy in15.2%, targeted therapy in 22.9% and intrathecal in 6.1% patients, respectively. The compliance with the BMC decision in patients in whom it was changed was 84.8% (39, n = 46).

Conclusion: Multidisciplinary management of difficult brain metastasis cases in specialised clinics has a significant impact on treatment decisions.