Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy for Early-Stage Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Abstract

An active introduction of screening programs potentially leads to a significant increase in the proportion of patients with early forms of non-small cell lung cancer. Surgical treatment, which is the standard of care for localized forms, due to functional limitations can be performed only in 65-70% of patients. The solution to this problem can be found in the improvement of the results of radiotherapy by using modern equipment, the planning systems, improved fractionation schemes and introduction of methods for summing radiation doses. Stereotactic radiotherapy allows high-precision delivery of high radiation dose to tumor with a minimal damage to surrounding healthy tissues. In this literature review based on the analysis of a large number of publications we show that it is not yet possible to make valid conclusions about the effectiveness and safety of stereotactic radiation therapy as an alternative to the surgical methods. It is necessary to plan and conduct randomized trials without further delay taking into account the expected high relevance of the method.