INCIDENCE OF METASTASES TO THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

Abstract

While benign neoplasms of the nervous system are frequently encountered, malignant metastases to neural tissues are not numerous. In the literature one finds records of metastases to the nervous system from various organs; yet no one has so far undertaken the arduous task of collating the incidence of all recorded cases of carcinoma and sarcoma metastasizing to the nervous system with the primary lesion in other parts of the body. According to most observers, cancer of the breast is the most frequent source of metastases to the brain. However, following that, in the order of their frequency, according to Redlich,¹ are the rare cylindric epithelial cell carcinoma of the bronchial mucosa and carcinoma of the gastrointestinal tract, the esophagus and the mediastinum. In Krastnig's material, cited by Levin,² the primary sites of neoplasm in 39 cases of cancer of the brain encountered in a series of 817 brains