Non-Invasive Stereotactic Radiation Therapy As Good As Surgery For Elderly Patients With Early Lung Cancer

A new study shows that a new type of targeted radiation therapy called stereotactic radiation therapy is just as good as surgery for patients aged 75 and older with early-stage lung cancer, according to research presented at the 2010 Chicago Multidisciplinary Symposium in Thoracic Oncology. This symposium is sponsored by the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (ISLAC) and the University of Chicago.

In this study, researchers compared two treatments for early lung cancer in elderly patients: surgery and stereotactic radiation. Surgery has been the standard treatment for decades, but some oncologists now feel that stereotactic radiation may be as good and are studying it in trials around the world. Stereotactic radiation therapy, sometimes called radiosurgery, refers to a single or several very targeted radiation therapy treatments. Brand names for stereotactic radiation include Axesse, CyberKnife, Gamma Knife, Novalis, Primatom, Synergy, X-Knife, TomoTherapy or Trilogy.

For this trial, researchers looked back at elderly patients with early lung cancer treated in North Holland between 2005 and 2007. They found that there were no differences in the long-term survival for patients treated with either treatment but that surgery had a higher risk of death in the first 30 days.

source: ASTRO