CNS Involvement in Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma: a Report of Eight Cases from the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Review of Literature

Purpose: CNS metastasis of pancreatic cancer is extremely rare, although systemic metastasis is very common. We present eight such cases with various forms of nervous system involvement. Methods: Data was gathered from chart review of 800 patients with pancreatic cancer treated between 2004 and 2012 of which eight patients are described with CNS metastases. Results: The median age of patients was 61.5 years and the median time to develop CNS metastasis was 29 months. Interestingly, two patients had no other sites of metastasis. The treatment modalities tried included resection followed by radiation, resection alone, or whole brain radiation.