[Stereotactic body radiotherapy for malignant nodules in the lung]

Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) is a method for the highly precise application of percutaneous high dose radiotherapy of extracranial targets in a limited number of treatment fractions. Due to the excellent local control rates, SBRT is now well established in limited stage lung tumours. In medically inoperable patients SBRT is the method of choice, in high-risk patients and patients who refuse resection, the current literature recommends SBRT as a reasonable therapeutic option. An analysis of the SBRT working group of the German Society for Radiation Oncology showed that the treatment results in Germany are well comparable to international data. The limitations of SBRT lie in the treatment of tumours in the direct neighbourhood of so-called "serial" normal tissues, which is due to the risk of severe late effects of high dose radiation. Therefore these patients should be treated by SBRT, if at all, in the context of respective clinical studies.