[Treatment of brain metastases].

Brain metastases (BC) are the cause of important mortality and morbidity in cancer patients. Corticoids and Whole Brain Radiotherapy (WBRT) remains the standard treatment but, at the long-term, the results are disappointing. In patients with a single metastase, the survival and the Quality of Life (QoL) can be improved by surgery combined with WBRT.

[Gamma knife radiosurgery].

Gamma Knife radiosurgery can be used as an alternative or complementary therapy to neurosurgery or radiotherapy for the treatment of some brain disorders or tumors of small volume. The most frequent indications are brain metastases, vestibular schwannomas, meningiomas, trigeminal neuralgia, arteriovenous malformations, some gliomas, and pituitary adenomas. Created in 1999, the Gamma Knife Center of the ULB remains currently the unique center in Belgium where a Gamma Knife radiosurgery treatment can be performed.