Radiation therapy of stage I and II non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)

Surgery is the preferred and standard treatment for patients with resectable stage I and II non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Survival rates of local surgery are unbeaten by other treatment modalities. Up to 70% of these patients survive 5 years or longer. However, there is a subset of patients who either are inoperable due to the presence of severe associated diseases, or who refuse surgery. In these patients radical radiotherapy with curative intent is an effective alternative. In our department we retrospectively analysed survival and freedom from treatment failure in those patients treated in our hospital with primary irradiation for stage I and II NSCLC (T1-2 N0-1 M0) during the last 20 years. In total 60 patients with a median age of 69 years could be evaluated. 35% had stage I and 65% had stage II NSCLC. All patients received 2- or 3-dimensionally planned megavoltage radiotherapy with a median dose of 60 Gy with normally fractionated single doses of 2.0 Gy five times a week. Pneumonitis WHO Grade III was found in 5 out of the 60 patients (8.3%). Locoregional recurrence was observed in 53% of the patients resulting in a median progression-free survival of 18 months and a median overall survival of 20.5 months. However, there is a need for further improvement of treatment outcome of radiotherapy for medically inoperable patients with early-stage NSCLC. One possibility might be radiation dose escalation or alteration in fractionation of radiotherapy, such as continuous hyperfractionated accelerated radiotherapy CHART or a modification thereof CHARTWEL. These new fractionation schemes might be beneficial for a subset of patients in terms of improved local control, reduced incidence of metastasis and improved long term survival. The combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy might be another option for treatment of early-stage NSCLC. In advanced disease combined modality treatment turned out to be superior to radiotherapy alone, concerning local control and survival. If this is true also for early-stage NSCLC, it has to be shown in further investigations.