Characteristics of patients with brain metastases from lung cancer in a palliative care center.

Purpose and methods Patients with brain metastases present severe symptoms owing to the tumor growth or treatment side effects, and supportive measures are often critical for the patients and their families. However, there is currently a lack of palliative care and end-of-life (EoL) provision for patients affected by advanced brain tumors. We performed a retrospective analysis of the characteristics of patients with brain metastases from lung cancer between August 1998 and December 2008 in our palliative care center.