gms | German Medical Science

65th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Neurosurgery (DGNC)

German Society of Neurosurgery (DGNC)

11 - 14 May 2014, Dresden

Article

Send article

Resection of central nervous system lymphoma – a paradigm shift?

Meeting Abstract

Search Medline for

  • Nina Brawanski - Abteilung für Neurochirurgie, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
  • Lutz Martin Weise - Abteilung für Neurochirurgie, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
  • Gerhard Marquardt - Abteilung für Neurochirurgie, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
  • Marlies Wagner - Abteilung für Neuroradiologie, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
  • Volker Seifert - Abteilung für Neurochirurgie, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
  • Christian Senft - Abteilung für Neurochirurgie, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie. 65. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie (DGNC). Dresden, 11.-14.05.2014. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2014. DocP 084

doi: 10.3205/14dgnc480, urn:nbn:de:0183-14dgnc4805

Published: May 13, 2014

© 2014 Brawanski et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

Outline

Text

Objective: Primary central nervous system lymphomas (PCNSL) are regarded as non-surgically treated tumors with a poor prognosis. Usually, only stereotactic biopsy is performed to establish the diagnosis, and most patients show disease progression within half a year. A recent study (Weller et al. 2012) questioned this view, since patients who had surgical resection of PCNSL manifestations prior to adjuvant therapy had a better outcome than patients who had biopsy only.

Method: We performed a retrospective analysis of our patient database to identify patients with PCNSL who had undergone “accidental” tumor removal in our department between 2002 and 2013. All patients had PCNSL specific therapy followed surgery.

Results: 4 patients with PCNSL were treated surgically. Two patients have remission at 3 and 13 months postoperatively, while two others had disease progression at 16 and 23 months, respectively.

Conclusions: Gross total removal of PCNSL may improve outcome. We present 3 patients who had progression-free intervals of more than 12 months after surgery. While the importance of chemotherapy is beyond doubt, more data on the effect of surgery on the prognosis of patients with PCNSL are needed. However the paradigm of medical treatment only is being challenged.