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Updated: Oct 5, 2026
Treatment of Liver Metastases Using an Internal Target Volume Method for Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy
Published on: May 8, 2018
Increasing the use of Radical Radiotherapy is Associated with Improved Lung Cancer Specific Survival-A Regional
M McMahon1, J McAleese1, D Donnelly2
1Northern Ireland Cancer Centre, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, 51 Lisburn Road, Belfast BT9 7AB, Northern Ireland, UK.
Aims:
Leading clinical groups and international guidelines recommend the increased use of radical radiotherapy (RR) as a curative-intent treatment in early-stage (ES) and locally advanced (LA) lung cancer (LC). Rapidly evolving diagnostic pathways and radiotherapy technology have enabled a greater number of patients with treatable localised disease to be detected and to receive this treatment safely, respectively. However, RR utility rates continue to vary widely within the UK and between countries globally, due to several factors including non systematic clinical decision-making and inequitable RR resource allocation. Our cancer network directed clinicians to increase the use of radical treatments in LC including RR. While national rates of LC survival have been rising in recent years, the direct contribution of RR to these advancements has not been studied, and so the impact on use of RR in our cancer network was explored in this paper.
Materials And Methods:
A large, regional LC dataset spanning 2010-2021 was linked with patient-level clinical information from regional LC multidisciplinary meetings and a radiotherapy clinical database. A Weibull multivariate model for the association between RR and cause-specific survival was built and included adjustment for non-RR treatment pathways and pertinent tumour- and patient-related factors.
Results:
Complete records were available for 5882 patients. RR use increased from 16.6% to 30.6% between 2010-2013 and 2018-2021. In parallel, there was an increase from 21.9% to 33.1% in 5-year cause-specific survival. Adjusted hazard ratios for 2018-2021, compared to 2010-2013, with and without RR included were 0.67 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.61-0.72) and 0.78 (95% CI: 0.72-0.85), respectively. Increasing RR was a strong independent factor associated with survival improvement over the period.
Conclusion:
RR use is increasing and is strongly associated with the improved outcomes observed across the period. These population-level data support the prioritisation and expansion of RR utilisation in patients with LC in order to improve outcomes.
