Takeaway
Immunotherapy in combination with radiotherapy increased overall survival (OS) for patients with solid cancers and brain metastases who had received definitive surgery at the primary tumor site.
Why this matters ?
In the setting of brain metastasis, the median survival time ranges from 4 to 16 months depending on primary tumor type.
Monoclonal antibody immunotherapies are a promising treatment for brain metastases, due to their ability to cross the blood–brain barrier; however, in-depth studies of immunotherapies has been limited so far.
It was hypothesized that patients with brain metastases who had received primary tumor resection, thereby having had the bulk of tumor mass removed, would respond better to immunotherapies.