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Palliative External Beam Thoracic Radiation Therapy of Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

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Advances in Radiation Oncology in Lung Cancer

Part of the book series: Medical Radiology ((Med Radiol Radiat Oncol))

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Abstract

Lung cancer is still the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, however with a significant decline in the industrialized nations in the last decades (Barta et al. 2019). About two-thirds of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are diagnosed with localized stage III or metastatic stage IV disease (Bryan et al. 2018). Of these, 30% have stage III disease. During the last 5–10 years, the effect of systemic therapy, either a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, immunotherapy alone, or immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy, can give considerable prolonged survival, challenging the distinction between curative or palliative treatment goal. Many patients will have symptoms from intrathoracic tumor at diagnosis or will develop symptoms in the near future (Hopwood and Stephens 1995; Lutz et al. 2001). Radiotherapy is effective in reducing intrathoracic symptoms. Due to advanced disease and limited prognosis, intervention should have effective palliation avoiding unacceptable toxicity as the major goal.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. St Olav University Hospital, Trondheim, Norway

    Stein Sundstrøm

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  1. Stein Sundstrøm
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Correspondence to Stein Sundstrøm .

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  1. School of Medicine, University of Kragujevac, Kragujevac, Serbia

    Branislav Jeremić

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Sundstrøm, S. (2022). Palliative External Beam Thoracic Radiation Therapy of Non-small Cell Lung Cancer. In: Jeremić, B. (eds) Advances in Radiation Oncology in Lung Cancer. Medical Radiology(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/174_2022_323

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/174_2022_323

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-34846-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-34847-1

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