Metastasis is regarded as a highly inefficient process in that less than 0.01% of circulating tumor cells eventually succeeds in forming secondary tumor growths. The seed and soil theory suggests that certain tumor cells have a specific affinity for the milieu of certain organs. Numerous studies have attempted to better understand the biology behind the distribution of brain metastasis and theories include both variables involving the metastasis and the target brain parenchyma. This work establishes probabilistic maps of locations where 13 primary cancer subtypes metastasize to the brain from T1-weighted MRIs of 955 patients undergoing stereotactic radiosurgery.
This abstract and the presentation materials are available to members only; a login is required.