Radiation given during brain surgery did not raise the risk of vein clots
Original title: The risk of sinus vein thrombosis in patients treated with intraoperative radiotherapy for sinus adjacent tumours.
How far along is this research?
- Lab cells
- Animals
- Review
- Tested in people
This was tested in people. That is the most reliable kind of research we share.
This was a look back at patients who were already treated, not a new treatment being tested.
The short version
Giving radiation during surgery did not lead to more blood clots in the brain's large veins than the usual radiation given after surgery.
What was studied. Doctors looked back at records of 166 people who had surgery to remove brain tumors that had spread from cancer elsewhere in the body. 71 of them got radiation during the surgery. 95 got the standard radiation after surgery. The doctors checked scans for clots in the large veins that drain blood from the brain.
What they found. Clots showed up in 5 patients after surgery. That was 2 patients in the during surgery group and 3 patients in the after surgery group. The rates were about the same in both groups. Every clot happened in a tumor that sat next to one of these large veins. None of those patients had symptoms from the clot.
What this means, and what it doesn't
What it could mean: If your tumor sits next to a large vein in the brain, fear of a clot may not be a strong reason to rule out radiation during surgery. That is one more option a surgeon can weigh with you. Both approaches are already used in care today, so this is about choosing between them, not about a new treatment.
What it doesn't mean: This does not mean radiation during surgery is better than radiation after surgery. The study only looked at one risk, blood clots in the brain's veins. It did not test whether people lived longer or whether tumors came back less often. The doctors looked back at records of past patients. They did not run a trial that assigned people to one treatment or the other, so the two groups may have differed in ways the study could not measure. Only 5 clots happened in all, and a small number like that can be hard to draw firm conclusions from. This is not a cure and not a promise about how you will do.
Source: PubMed, August 4, 2026 · Read the original
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