Dose escalation to 84 Gy with concurrent chemotherapy in stage III NSCLC appears excessively toxic: results from a prematurely terminated randomized phase II trial

The treatment development over the last decades for patients with NSCLC stage III disease has been disappointing despite numerous attempts to improve outcome. Strategies including addition of maintenance therapy (e.g. docetaxel), addition of targeted therapy (e.g. cetuximab) and introduction of newer chemotherapy agents such as pemetrexed or tumor vaccines all failed to increase survival beyond that provided by the presiding concept of concurrent chemoradiotherapy. A platinum-based chemotherapy doublet combined with radiation doses to 60  Gy, or somewhat higher, is still considered standard therapy in most clinics.

Source: Lung Cancer - June 16, 2018 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Andreas Hallqvist, Stefan Bergstr öm, Hedvig Björkestrand, Anna-Maja Svärd, Simon Ekman, Erik Lundin, Erik Holmberg, Mikael Johansson, Signe Friesland, Jan Nyman Source Type: research