No shinkei geka. Neurological surgery
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In patients presenting with brain metastases, the evaluation for extracranial metastases is important to determine the therapeutic strategies and predict the patients outcome. We investigated the findings of whole-body FDG-PET/CT in 30 patients with metastatic brain tumors. The patients were divided into two groups consisting of 16 patients with precocious or synchronous metastases (PS group), or 14 patients with metachronous metastases (M group), according to the brain metastatic patterns. ⋯ Two of them have been clinically independent for more than 20 months. 22 (73.3%) of all patients presented extracranial metastases when brain lesions were found. FDG-PET/CT is a useful modality in detecting the primary cancer and evaluating extracranial systemic metastases. It is important to establish a refined clinical staging system and predict the patient's prognosis based upon the findings of FDG-PET/CT in patients with brain metastasis.