Treatments of brain tumors in adults – an up-date

Maximal safe resection is the fi rst step in the complex neurooncological therapy of adult brain tumors. Surgical management of brain tumors, including the surgical innovations (neuronavigation, intraoperative imaging, awake craniotomy, intraoperative electrophysiology) providing more radical resection with the safe preservation of neurological functions will be presented. In case of malignancy the surgery is followed by radiation and chemotherapy. In this review we describe the postoperative adjuvant therapeutical modatilites available for primary and metastatic tumors, emphasizing the modern chemotherapy of high grade gliomas and stereotactic radiosurgery of brain metastases. As a conclusion we summerize the guidelines and modalities for the most common adult brain tumors, according to histological type and grade.