Stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) yielded higher overall survival rates and low toxicity for patients with inoperable, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in comparison to conventional radiation therapy, according to research presented today at the American Society for Radiation Oncology’s (ASTRO’s) 54th Annual Meeting.

The study follows a 2010 report1 on operable patients with NSCLC.

The study evaluated the safety and efficacy of SBRT in 100 patients with medically inoperable NSCLC from June* 2004 to November 2008 (*updated data), from 15 institutions throughout Japan with a median follow-up of 37 months.

Patients’ overall survival rate was 59.9 percent after three years and only mild toxicity was shown.

At the three-year follow-up, progression-free survival was 49.8 percent, local progression-free survival was 52.8 percent and event-free survival was 46.8 percent.

Of the grade 3 adverse events (AEs), 10* percent of patients (*updated data) experienced dyspnea, eight percent experienced hypoxia, seven percent experienced pneumonitis, two percent experienced chest pain and one percent experienced cough.

Only two percent of patients experienced grade 4 AEs of dyspnea and hypoxia. No grade 5 AEs were observed.

At the start of the study, 104 patients were included, 77 male and 27 female, with a median age of 78 (range 59-90). Patients were treated with 48 Gy at the isocenter in four fractions for four to eight days.

Patients had a median tumour size of 21 mm (range 9 to 30 mm), with 50 patients exhibiting adenocarcinomas, 40 patients exhibiting squamous cell carcinomas and 14 with other types of lung cancer. All patients completed the protocol treatment.

Four patients were eliminated from the study results after completion because three patients were diagnosed with another cancer within five years after registration and one patient was unexpectedly treated with SBRT in combination with chemotherapy.

“Our study found that SBRT for inoperable lung cancer patients was highly effective and showed mild toxicity,” said Yasushi Nagata, MD, lead author of the study and a radiation oncologist at the Department of Radiation Oncology at Hiroshima University in Hiroshima, Japan. “This treatment should be the new standard replacing conventional radiotherapy for this population of patients.”

The abstract, “Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy For T1N0M0 Non-small Cell Lung Cancer: First Report For Inoperable Population Of A Phase II Trial By Japan Clinical Oncology Group,” was presented in detail during a scientific session at ASTRO’s Annual Meeting.

Source: ASTRO