RTOG and Highly-focused stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT)

Highly-focused stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) can eliminate the targeted tumor while avoiding treatment-related illness and may ultimately improve survival for patients with inoperable non-small cell lung cancer, according to early findings of a Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) study published in the March, cancer-themed, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) is a noninvasive cancer treatment in which numerous small, highly focused, and accurate radiation beams are used to deliver potent doses in 1 to 5 treatments to tumour targets.

"The primary finding and perhaps most exciting aspect to this prospective study was the high rate of primary tumour control (97.6 percent at 3 years). Primary tumour control is an essential requirement for the cure of lung cancer.

Stereotactic body radiation therapy as delivered in RTOG 0236 provided more than double the rate of primary tumour control previous reported for conventional radiotherapy suggesting that this technique could provide a significant step forward in the battle against this type of lung cancer," said Robert Timmerman, MD, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, principal investigator on the RTOG study.

Currently, patients with inoperable early stage lung cancer are generally offered conventional radiation treatment (most commonly given during 20-30 outpatient treatments) or observed without specific cancer therapy. However, study authors indicate that neither of these approaches achieves ideal outcomes.