Oncotarget: Survival after resection of brain metastases: A matched cohort analysis

 The cover for issue 32 of Oncotarget features Figure 2, "This figure depicts overall survival and local in-brain recurrence-free survival in the study's subgroups," by Hussein, et al. which reported that the aim of the present study is to assess whether the use of 5-ALA has an impact on local recurrence or survival compared to conventional white light microscopic tumor resection.

Two groups were compared:

     In the “white light” group, resection was performed with conventional microscopy.

     In the 5-ALA group, fluorescence guided peritumoral resection was additionally performed after standard microscopic resection.

Local in-brain recurrence occurred in 21/175 patients with a rate of 15/119 in the white light and 6/56 in the 5-ALA group.

The use of 5-ALA did not result in lower in-brain recurrence or mortality compared to the use of white light microscopy.

Dr. Bawarjan Schatlo from the Department of Neurosurgery at The University of Medicine Goettingen said, "Metastatic brain disease is more common than primary brain tumors."