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Updated: Dec 1, 2025

Treatment of Liver Metastases Using an Internal Target Volume Method for Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy
Published on: May 8, 2018
Developing and validating an integrated gross tumor volume (GTV)-TNM stratification system for supplementing
Nai-Bin Chen1, Qi-Wen Li1,2, Zheng-Fei Zhu3
1Department of Radiation Oncology, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, 651 Dongfeng Road East, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510060, People's Republic of China.
Purpose:
The gross tumor volume (GTV) could be an independent prognostic factor for unresectable locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer (LANSCLC). We aimed to develop and validate a novel integrated GTV-TNM stratification system to supplement LANSCLC sub-staging in patients treated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT).
Methods:
We performed a retrospective review of 340 patients with unresectable LANSCLC receiving definitive CCRT. All included patients were divided into two randomized cohorts. Then the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox regression were calculated to access the prognostic value of the integrated GTV-TNM stratification system, which was further validated by the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) score and F1-score.
Results:
The optimal outcome-based GTV cut-off values (70 and 180 cm3) of the modeling cohort were used to determine each patient's integrated GTV-TNM stratum in the whole cohort. Our results indicated that a lower integrated GTV-TNM stratum could had better overall survival and progression-free survival (all P < 0.001), which was recognized as an independent prognostic factor. Also, its prognostic value was robust in both the modeling and validation cohorts. Furthermore, the prognostic validity of the integrated GTV-TNM stratification system was validated by significantly improved AUC score (0.636 vs. 0.570, P = 0.027) and F1-score (0.655 vs. 0.615, P < 0.001), compared with TNM stage.
Conclusions:
We proposed a novel integrated GTV-TNM stratification system to supplement unresectable LANSCLC sub-staging due to its prognostic value independent of TNM stage and other clinical characteristics, suggesting that it could be considered in individual treatment decision-making process.

