Tuyển tập các báo cáo nghiên cứu về y học được đăng trên tạp chí y học Radiation Oncology cung cấp cho các bạn kiến thức về ngành y đề tài: "Prognostic indices for brain metastases – usefulness and challenges. | Radiation Oncology BioMed Central Open Access Review Prognostic indices for brain metastases - usefulness and challenges Carsten Nieder 1 2 and Minesh P Mehta3 Address 1Medical Department Division of Oncology Nordland Hospital 8092 Bod0 Norway 2Faculty of Medicine Institute of Clinical Medicine University of Tromso 9038 Tromso Norway and 3Department of Human Oncology University of Wisconsin Hospital Medical School Madison WI 53792 USA Email Carsten Nieder - cnied@ Minesh P Mehta - radiotherapy@ Corresponding author Published 4 March 2009 Received 3 December 2008 Radiation Oncology 2009 4 10 doi 1748-717X-4-10 Accepted 4 March 2009 This article is available from http content 4 1 10 2009 Nieder and Mehta licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http licenses by which permits unrestricted use distribution and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background This review addresses the strengths and weaknesses of 6 different prognostic indices published since the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group RTOG developed and validated the widely used 3-tiered prognostic index known as recursive partitioning analysis RPA classes . between 1997 and 2008. In addition other analyses of prognostic factors in groups of patients which typically are underrepresented in large trials or databases published in the same time period are reviewed. Methods Based on a systematic literature search studies with more than 20 patients were included. The methods and results of prognostic factor analyses were extracted and compared. The authors discuss why current data suggest a need for a more refined index than RPA. Results So far none of the indices has been derived from analyses of all potential prognostic factors. The 3 most recently published indices including the RTOG s graded prognostic .
