Towards Improved Prognostic Scores Predicting Survival in Patients with Brain Metastases: A Pilot Study of Serum Lactate Dehydrogenase Levels

Table 1

Pretreatment characteristics of all 100 patients included in this study.

Parameter	Number and %
Elevated serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH)	59
Normal LDH	41
Extracranial metastases absent	14
Extracranial metastases present	86
Controlled primary tumour	71
Uncontrolled primary tumour	29
Solitary brain metastasis	17
Two or three brain metastases	44
More than 3 brain metastases	39
Female sex	70
Male sex	30
Lung cancer	36
Breast cancer	34
Gastrointestinal cancer	11
Malignant melanoma	10
Kidney cancer	4
Other primary cancer	5
Median Karnofsky performance status	70% (range 30–100)
Median age	62 years (24–85)
Median number of brain metastases	3 (1–50)
Median LDH	228 (99–3190)