New research was presented at ASTRO 2020, the virtual American Society for Radiation Oncology Annual Meeting, from October 24-28.
Evidence suggests that patients with cancer who have limited lung metastases may be suitable for surgery or stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT). For a study, researchers assigned patients with metastatic solid cancer and no more than three lung metastases in a 1:1 ratio to a single 28 Gy fraction of SBRT or 48 Gy over four fractions. Grade 3 or greater adverse events (AEs) at 1 year were experienced in 5% of patients in the single-fraction arm and 3% in the multi-fraction arm. Grade 3 AEs in the single-fraction arm included fatigue, chest pain, and loss of breath across two patients, with no fatal events, compared with one patient who had undiagnosed interstitial lung disease and died of pneumonitis within 3 months of SBRT in the multi-fraction arm. Esophagitis and dermatitis were significantly more frequent in the multi-fraction arm, whereas all other common toxicities were not significantly different between the two arms. Local control rates were 93% in the single-fraction arm and 95% in the multi-fraction arm, while disease-free survival rates were 59% and 60%, respectively. Overall 1-year survival rates were 95% in the single-fraction arm and 93% in the multi-fraction arm.
