Table 2.

Treatment of brain metastases – summary of main studies.

Chemotherapy agents	Patients	Design	Histology	Response rate (%)	Overall survival	Reference
Gemcitabine–CBCDA, Gemcitabine–paclitaxel, Paclitaxel/CBCDA	194	Phase III	NSCLC	28.9	7.7 months	Edelman et al. [2010]
CDDP-based	110	Survey	NSCLC	27	10 months	Moscetti et al. [2007]
Vinorelbine–gemcitabine–CBCDA	22	Phase II	NSCLC	45	33 weeks	Bernardo et al. [2002]
CDDP–paclitaxel–vinorelbine/gemcitabine	26	Phase II	NSCLC	38	21.4 weeks	Cortes et al. [2003]
Temozolamide	22	Phase II	NSCLC	–	6.6 months	Abrey et al. [2001]
Pemetrexed	39	Retrospective study	NSCLC	69	10 months	Bearz et al. [2010]
CDDP–pemetrexed	43	Multicenter phase II	NSCLC	34.9	7.4 months	Barlesi et al. [2011]
Gefitinib	41	Phase II	NSCLC	27	–	Ceresoli et al. [2004]
Gefitinib/erlotinib	23	Phase II	NSCLC(adk)	69.6	18.8 months	Kim et al. [2009]

adk, adenocarcinoma; CBCDA, carboplatin; CDDP, cisplatin; NSCLC, nonsmall cell lung cancer.