New study gives hope for brain tumor treatment

A new study may help more metastatic brain tumor patients access a treatment that can significantly improve their quality of life. Called radiosurgery, the hope is that the study’s results will lead to its expanded use.

“Patients tolerate this treatment better than the ones more commonly used in the past, with much less treatment-related side effects,” explains Dr. Siavash Jabbari, medical director of radiation oncology at the Laurel Amtower Cancer Institute at Sharp Memorial Hospital. “It’s pretty clear radiosurgery gives patients a much better experience with better outcomes.”

A difficult discovery

Cancer, by its very nature, is difficult on the body. Depending on the type of cancer, stage at which it is discovered, and other factors, treatment could involve chemotherapy, surgery, radiation or a combination, including all three.

Yet, a person can go through successful treatment only to discover at some point in the future that cancer has appeared in a different part of the body.

When cancer cells move from where they start, it is called metastasizing. Dr. Jabbari estimates that between 10% to 20% of all cancer patients will develop metastatic brain tumors, with around 200,000 cases diagnosed each year in the United States. Some forms of cancer are more prone to brain metastasis, including lung cancer and melanoma.

Traditional treatment

While the thought of tumors metastasizing to the brain is scary for patients, they are often treatable. Though, the most traditional treatment is hard on the body.

“Chemotherapy isn’t usually effective for brain metastases because the medications don’t always penetrate the brain well,” says Dr. Jabbari. “Targeting the metastases with radiation wasn’t easy or possible with older techniques, so the traditional treatment has been whole brain radiation.”

Still, he says this can have significant side effects, including neurocognitive issues, such as permanent impact on short-term recall, permanent hair loss and profound fatigue.

“For a while now, there has been technology to pinpoint radiation directly to the metastases, which we call radiosurgery,” says Dr. Jabbari. “At Sharp, we’ve seen it be really effective, but there haven’t been the kind of high-quality studies done on performing radiosurgery on more than a handful of brain metastases at a time to make use of radiosurgery more widespread. That’s why this new study gives us a lot of hope.”

Greater use, fewer side effects

Radiosurgery uses sophisticated technology, including computer software, to plan out proper radiation doses and target the radiation with pinpoint precision. As it is currently used at Sharp Memorial Hospital, Sharp Grossmont Hospital and Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center, a patient’s team of doctors will discuss if radiosurgery would be a good option. If so, radiation oncologists, radiation therapists, medical physicists and often, neurosurgeons are involved in the planning.

“It’s something we’ve offered at Sharp for more than 15 years, but until recently, the supporting data was mostly for patients with a relatively limited number of brain metastases,” Dr. Jabbari says.

Previous studies have focused on the use of radiosurgery for one to four metastases. While Dr. Jabbari and others felt it could be used for patients with more, that theory had not yet been fully tested, which meant insurance would often not cover the treatment.

However, the high-quality study presented at the 2025 annual conference of the American Society of Clinical Oncology found that during the clinical trial conducted by the authors, radiosurgery was effective in patients with as many as 20 metastatic brain tumors, allowing for the avoidance of whole brain radiation and its side-effects.

Dr. Jabbari was not connected to the study but is excited about the results. “The survival rates are the same as the traditional treatments, but the impacts of the side effects are far better for patients, meaning their quality of life is much improved,” he says.

Specifically, he says radiosurgery patients experience fewer side effects, such as memory loss, short-term recall, hair loss and fatigue.

“This study gives the evidence that radiosurgery is worth expanding to more patients,” Dr. Jabbari says. “It matches what we’ve seen here at Sharp HealthCare, and we’re excited to hopefully bring radiosurgery to more San Diegans that could benefit in the coming years.”

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