An era of rapid advancement: diagnosis and treatment of metastatic brain cancer.

The past decade has been marked by significant improvements in the survival of patients with metastatic brain tumors, but the management of this disease presents a continuing challenge because of the varied nature of brain metastases and the limited survival time. Brain metastases are becoming more prevalent because of improvements in the treatment of extracranial lesions; this paradox brought together a seven-member multidisciplinary panel to discuss some of the most promising developments in imaging, surgical, and therapeutic techniques for metastatic brain tumors, and to address the perplexing challenges that remain. Their analyses are captured in this supplement, which begins here with an overview of metastatic brain cancer.