• Miriam Nuño, Debraj Mukherjee, Adam Elramsisy, Kristin Nosova, Shivanand P Lad, Maxwell Boakye, John S Yu, Keith L Black, and Chirag G Patil.
• Center for Neurosurgical Outcomes Research, Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute, Department of Neurosurgery, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
• Ann. Surg. Oncol. 2012 Aug 1; 19 (8): 2657-63.

BackgroundRace and gender disparities in outcomes have been documented in many cancers. Our study evaluated the role of race, gender, and tumor primary site in predicting in-hospital mortality, discharge disposition, and complications among patients with brain metastases.MethodsUsing Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) data from 1998 to 2007, we evaluated in-patient outcomes of brain metastases patients who underwent a craniotomy in U.S. hospitals. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to assess the effect of patient/tumor characteristics in predicting the proposed outcomes.ResultsNIS estimated 78,170 patients with metastatic brain tumors underwent craniotomy between 1998 and 2007 in the United States. Median age was 59.2 years, 52.1 % were women, and 6.4 % were black. In-hospital mortality rate was 2.2 % with an average length of stay of 7.6 days. Black patients had significantly higher morbidity and nonroutine discharges than whites/others (p < .0001). Black women had almost twice the mortality (3.4 vs 1.8 %, p < .0001), a higher complication rate (24.6 vs 18.8 %, p < .0001), longer hospital stays (10.0 vs 7.3 days, p < .0001), and more nonroutine discharges (45.1 vs 36.8 %, p < .0001), compared with white/other women. Tumor histology was a significant predictor of outcomes, with female lung cancer patients having the highest odds of mortality and primary gastrointestinal tumors having the highest number of complications.ConclusionsEvidence of race and gender disparities in outcomes were found in black patients, especially in black females who underwent surgical resection for brain metastases. These findings highlight an opportunity to reduce the gap of outcome disparities in brain metastasis patients.

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