Intracranial involvement by metastatic advanced gastric carcinoma.

From a cohort of 8,080 patients with advanced gastric carcinoma (AGC), 13 patients who developed intracranial metastasis were evaluated retrospectively. The average age of onset of these patients was younger than that of remaining patients who did not appear to have intracranial metastasis. Five of these patients presented with leptomeningeal metastasis (LM) while the remaining 8 presented with parenchymal metastasis (PM). Five of 8 patients with PM had received operation and additional chemotherapy for primary cancer whereas one of five patients had received both treatments, who later developed LM. The mean interval between the diagnosis of AGC and intracranial metastasis was shorter in LM than that in PM. Neither chemotherapy nor radiation directed at the intracranial metastatic site altered the clinical course.