Surgical versus nonsurgical management of metastatic melanoma of the brain.

A retrospective analysis of 80 patients with cerebral metastases from melanoma revealed that 42 patients in whom the metastases were excised experienced a median survival of 5 months, in comparison with a 6-week median survival for 38 patients who were not operated upon. The same survival figures applied when comparing only patients with known Stage 4 disease at the time of diagnosis of the brain metastasis. The surgical mortality rate was 9.5% for the entire series and 5.4% for the 37 patients treated surgically since 1960.