Early non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients can benefit from treatment with stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR), researchers announced at a conference Tuesday.
"Based on the results of our analysis, SABR appears to be an important option to be considered by all patients presenting with early-stage lung cancer," said study author Dr. Frank Lagerwaard of VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, speaking at the American Society of Radiation Oncology 53rd Annual Meeting in Miami. "These data also support ongoing randomized clinical trials comparing surgery and SABR in potentially operable stage I NSCLC."
The standard care in this type of early-stage lung cancer is typically surgery that removes of a section of the affected lung. SABR treats the tumor by targeting it with a high-energy radiation beam intended to damage tumor cell DNA and kill the cell.
Lagerwaard's team reviewed records of 177 lung cancer patients to find those who could have been surgical candidates but received SABR instead. They found that after three years, 93 percent of SABR-treated patients did not show local tumor regrowth. This is comparable to outcomes for patients who received surgery for treatment of the cancer. The overall 30-day mortality rate was 0 percent, an improvement of the earlier rate of 2.6 percent for patients who underwent removal of the affected lobe of the lung.
