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NCCN Updates Central Nervous System Cancers Guidelines

JENKINTOWN, Pa., October 23, 2007 — The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) announces important updates to the NCCN Central Nervous System (CNS) Cancers Guidelines. The NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology™ are widely recognized and applied as the standard of care in oncology in the United States in both the community and the academic practice settings.

The NCCN CNS panel revised the guidelines by providing radiation therapy dosing and new detailed recommendations for chemotherapy for specific brain cancers or metastatic sites. For example, patients with recurrent CNS metastases from breast cancer, CNS lymphoma, or carcinomatous/lymphomatous meningitis can be treated with a high-dose methotrexate regimen.

The NCCN CNS guidelines now include specific recommendations for brain imaging. These imaging results are used mainly to make treatment decisions. The most common use is to differentiate radiation necrosis from active tumor, which may prevent unnecessary surgery or other therapies.

NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology™ are developed and continually updated through an evidence-based process with explicit review of the scientific evidence by multidisciplinary panels of expert physicians from NCCN Member Institutions. The most recent version of this and all the guidelines are available free of charge at www.nccn.org.