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Imaging Neurologic Manifestations of Oncologic Disease

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Cancer Neurology in Clinical Practice

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Abstract

Imaging plays a critical role during the diagnosis and management of metastatic disease to the central nervous system. When cancers metastasize to the central nervous system, there are often clinical manifestations due to direct mass effect on functional structures in the brain or spinal cord. Certain malignancies have propensity to metastasize to brain and may be clinically silent. Yet, the presence of CNS metastasis can significantly alter prognosis and impact treatment decision-making. Therefore, accurate diagnosis of CNS metastases is an important step in staging. While the imaging appearances of metastases can be highly variable depending on histological subtypes of primary tumors, there are important imaging features that can help with diagnosis and treatment planning. Furthermore, metastatic disease can initially present as a lesion(s) in the brain or spine sometimes mimicking primary tumors or non-neoplastic etiologies such as inflammation and infection. The imaging approach to CNS metastasis depends on both clinical symptoms and cancer types in order to maximize the sensitivity of lesion detection. In this chapter, a general approach to imaging of brain and spinal metastases is presented. Commonly encountered post-treatment imaging findings are also discussed.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the ARRS/ASNR Scholar Award.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Raymond Huang

  2. Center for Neuro-Oncology, Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, 450 Brookline Avenue, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Patrick Y. Wen

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Correspondence to Raymond Huang .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Harrison Distinguished Teaching, Professor of Neurology, Neurological Surgery, and Medicine, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA

    David Schiff

  2. Instructor, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Neurology/Neuro-Oncology, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Isabel Arrillaga

  3. Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, Center for Neuro-Oncology, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Patrick Y. Wen

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Huang, R., Wen, P.Y. (2018). Imaging Neurologic Manifestations of Oncologic Disease. In: Schiff, D., Arrillaga, I., Wen, P. (eds) Cancer Neurology in Clinical Practice. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57901-6_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57901-6_2

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