Laser interstitial thermal therapy as an adjunct therapy in brain tumors: A meta-analysis and comparison with stereotactic radiotherapy

Background: Minimally invasive procedures are gaining widespread acceptance in difficult-to-access brain tumor treatment. Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) is the preferred choice, however, laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT) has emerged as a tumor cytoreduction technique. The present meta-analysis compared current SRS therapy with LITT in brain tumors. Methods: A search was performed in Lilacs, PubMed, and Cochrane database. Patient’s demographics, tumor location, therapy used, Karnofsky performance status score before treatment, and patient’s outcome (median overall survival, progression-free survival, and adverse events) data were extracted from studies. The risk of bias was assessed by Cochrane collaboration tool. Results: Twenty-five studies were included in this meta-analysis. LITT and SRS MOS in brain metastasis patients were 12.8 months’ versus 9.8 months (ranges 9.3–16.3 and 8.3–9.8; P = 0.02), respectively. In a combined comparison of adverse effects among LITT versus SRS in brain metastasis, we found 15% reduction in absolute risk difference (−0.16; 95% confidence interval P < 0.0001). Conclusion: We could not state that LITT treatment is an optimal alternative therapy for difficult-to-access brain tumors due to the lack of systematic data that were reported in our pooled studies. However, our results identified a positive effect in lowering the absolute risk of adverse events compared with SRS therapy. Therefore, randomized trials are encouraged to ascertain LITT role, as upfront or postoperative/post-SRS therapy for brain tumor treatment.