(UroToday.com) Brain metastases from prostate cancer are a rare event, and therefore data regarding the drivers of this disease are lacking. In this study, Miral Patel, MD, and colleagues report data from 24,887 patients analyzed by a targeted genomic profiling method, which included 74 patients who developed brain metastases. Using univariate analysis, the authors analyzed the association between time to brain metastasis and various parameters including clinical features such as T stage and Gleason score, treatments received, and genomic alterations that were detected in greater than 5% of all patients studied. The results of this study are shown below.
Overall, various clinical parameters such as clinical and pathologic T stage, node positivity at diagnosis, higher Gleason score, and receipt of Lupron and abiraterone were associated with brain metastasis in this analysis. Genomic alterations associated with brain metastasis include changes in BRCA2, MYC, RB1, and PTEN. As these alterations are generally associated with more aggressive disease, further analysis will be needed to explore the mechanisms associated with these alterations and the development of brain metastatic disease. 
Presented by: Miral Patel, MD, Resident in Radiation Oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York
Written by: Alok Tewari, MD, Ph.D., Medical Oncology Fellow at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, at the 2020 American Society of Clinical Oncology Virtual Annual Meeting (#ASCO20), May 29th-May 31st, 2020