Radiotherapy 'provides no benefit for secondary brain tumours'

Conclusion This valuable trial questions the use of whole brain radiotherapy (WBRT) for people with non-small cell lung cancer that has spread to the brain. It shows the poor outlook in these people, with average survival time only being about nine weeks regardless of treatment. Providing WBRT alongside standard care adds only about four to five days to life when adjusted for quality of life. But the possible side effects of radiotherapy, which include drowsiness, hair loss and nausea, can seem unnecessarily harsh when life expectancy is already short. The trial had many strengths, however: It had a good sample size. Power calculation was made beforehand to ensure the researchers had a sufficient sample size to reliably detect differences in the main outcome of interest. It included people of any degree of illness and disability, provided they could respond to questions about symptoms and quality of life. Randomisation was stratified to balance for treatment centre, gender, and the severity of the illness. As a result, baseline characteristics were well balanced between groups. The analysis included all people randomised to the two treatment groups. Patients and researchers could not be blinded to treatment allocation, but, as the researchers say, this was necessary for ethical reasons. It wouldn't be right to have people with advanced cancer regularly travelling to treatment centres to receive unnecessary sham radiotherapy treatment sessions, which could ...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Cancer Medical practice Source Type: news