Background Fibrotic interstitial lung disease (ILD) is often associated with poor outcomes, but has few predictors of progression. Daily home spirometry has been proposed to provide important information about the clinical course of idiopathic pulmonary disease (IPF). However, experience is limited, and home spirometry is not a routine component of patient care in ILD. Using home spirometry, we aimed to investigate the predictive potential of daily measurements of forced vital capacity (FVC) in fibrotic ILD. Methods In this prospective observational study, patients with fibrotic ILD and clinical progression were provided with home spirometers for daily measurements over 6 months. Hospital based spirometry was performed after three and 6 months. Disease progression, defined as death, lung transplantation, acute exacerbation or FVC decline > 10% relative was assessed in the cohort. Results From May 2017 until August 2018, we included 47 patients (IPF n = 20; non-IPF n = 27). Sufficient daily measurements were performed by 85.1% of the study cohort. Among these 40 patients (IPF n = 17; non-IPF n = 23), who had a mean ± SD age of 60.7 ± 11.3 years and FVC 64.7 ± 21.7% predicted (2.4 ± 0.8 L), 12 patients experienced disease progression (death: n = 2; lung transplantation: n = 3; acute exacerbation: n = 1; FVC decline > 10%: n = 6). Within the first 28 days, a group of patients had high daily variability in FVC, with 60.0% having a variation ≥5%. Patients with disease progression had significantly higher FVC variability than those in the stable group (median variability 8.6% vs. 4.8%; p = 0.002). Cox regression identified FVC variability as independently associated with disease progression when controlling for multiple confounding variables (hazard ratio: 1.203; 95% CI:1.050–1.378; p = 0.0076). Conclusions Daily home spirometry is feasible in IPF and non-IPF ILD and facilitates the identification of FVC variability, which was associated with disease progression.

Immune-checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) have dramatically changed the landscape of lung cancer treatment. Preclinical studies investigating combination of ICI with radiation show a synergistic improvement of tumor control probability and have resulted in the development of novel therapeutic strategies. For advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), targeting immune checkpoint pathways has proven to be less toxic with more durable treatment response than conventional chemotherapy. In inoperable Stage III NSCLC, consolidation immune checkpoint inhibition with the PD-L1 inhibitor durvalumab after completion of concurrent platinum-based chemoradiotherapy resulted in remarkable improvement of progression-free and overall survival. This new tri-modal therapy has become a new treatment standard. Development of predictive biomarkers and improvement of patient selection and monitoring is the next step in order to identify patients most likely to derive maximal benefit from this new multimodal approach. In this review, we discuss the immunological rationale and current trials investigating chemoradioimmunotherapy for inoperable stage III NSCLC.

The aim of this study was to describe early and late toxicity, survival and local control in 45 patients with primary brain tumors treated with helical tomotherapy craniospinal irradiation (HT-CSI). From 2006 to 2014, 45 patients with central nervous system malignancies were treated with HT-CSI. The most common tumors were medulloblastoma in 20 patients, ependymoma in 10 patients, intracranial germinoma (ICG) in 7 patients, and primitive neuroectodermal tumor in 4 patients. Hematological toxicity during treatment included leukopenia Grades 1–4 (6.7%, 33.3%, 37.8% and 17.8%, respectively), anemia Grades 1–4 (44.4%, 22.2%, 22.2% and 0%, respectively) and thrombocytopenia Grades 1–4 (51.1%, 15.6%, 15.6% and 6.7%, respectively). The most common acute toxicities were nausea, vomiting, fatigue, loss of appetite, alopecia and neurotoxicity. No Grade 3 or higher late toxicity occurred. The overall 3- and 5-year survival rates were 80% and 70%, respectively. Survival for the main tumor entities included 3- and 5-year survival rates of 80% and 70%, respectively, for patients with medulloblastoma, 70% for both in patients with ependymoma, and 100% for both in patients with ICG. Relapse occurred in 11 patients (24.4%): 10 with local and 1 with multifocal relapse. One patient experienced a secondary cancer. M-status and the results of the re-evaluation at the end of treatment were significantly related to survival. Survival after HT-CSI was in line with the existing literature, and acute treatment-induced toxicity resolved quickly. Compared with conventional radiotherapy, HT offers benefits such as avoiding gaps and junctions, sparing organs, and better and more homogeneous dose distribution and coverage of the target volume.