The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of postoperative chemotherapy on recurrence and survival in patients after resection of metastatic brain tumors from non-small cell lung cancers.

Patients who went through resection of a single metastatic brain tumor from non-small cell lung cancer from July 2001 to December 2012 were reviewed. Those selected were 77 patients who survived more than 3 months after surgery were selected. Among them, 44 patients received various postoperative systemic chemotherapies, 33 patients received postoperative adjuvant whole brain radiotherapy (WBRT). Local/distant recurrence rate, local/distant recurrence free survival, disease free survival (DFS), and overall survival were compared between the two groups.

Among the 77 patients, there were 19 (24.7%) local recurrences. Local recurrence occurred in 7 (21.2%) of 33 patients in the adjuvant radiotherapy (RT) group and in 12 (27.3%) of the 44 patients in the chemotherapy group ( p =0.542). Among the 77 patients, there were 34 (44.1%) distant recurrences. Distant recurrence occurred in 7 (21.2%) of the 33 patients in the adjuvant RT group and in 27 (61.4%) of the 44 patients in the chemotherapy group ( p <0.0005). Patients' survival in terms of local recurrence free survival, distant recurrence free survival, DFS, and overall survival was not shown to be statistically different between the two groups before and after adjusting for covariates.

There was no significant difference observed between postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy and adjuvant WBRT in terms of patients' survival. Postoperative chemotherapy is more feasible and may be an appropriate option for simultaneous control of both primary and metastatic lesions.