Radiosurgery Society Study Examines Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy Outcomes in the Treatment of Lung Metastases

The Radiosurgery Society (RSS), a non-profit medical society dedicated to advancing the science and clinical practice of radiosurgery, recently published a study using data from its RSSearch Patient Registry, a multi-institutional, observational registry established to standardize data collection from patients treated with stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) and stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT).

The study, titled “Lung metastases treated with stereotactic body radiotherapy: the RSSearch® patient Registry’s experience,” examines outcomes from 447 patients treated for lung metastases using SBRT at 30 academic and community cancer centers participating in the RSSearch Patient Registry.

The study found five year survival of 21.8 percent survival benefit with SBRT, equal to surgery, as previously published in surgical literature.  The study also found that patients with smaller metastases treated with higher doses of SBRT had the best response.  There was no difference in treatment response between different tumor types, however survival was improved for breast and head and neck cancer.

“The strength of our RSSearch Registry study is the large number of patients treated in a uniform manner with high dose SBRT, representing the largest series reported in the literature to date,” said Rachelle Lanciano, M.D., Chair of Radiation Oncology at Delaware County Memorial Hospital/Philadelphia CyberKnife and Adjunct clinical associate professor Drexel University.  “Randomized trials are underway to assess the survival benefit of local treatment for oligometastases and until those trials are reported, prospective registry series like our recent study are extremely valuable in helping to guide treatment decisions.”

At Philadelphia CyberKnife, lung tumors are treated with SBRT using the CyberKnife® Robotic Radiosurgery System.  CyberKnife is a painless, non-invasive outpatient cancer treatment with minimal to no side effects.  During the CyberKnife treatment, hundreds of highly concentrated and incredibly precise beams of radiation are targeted directly to tumors and lesions in the lung.  As the patient breathes during the CyberKnife treatment, the CyberKnife robotic arm moves with the rise and fall of his/her body – meaning that healthy tissue is protected from radiation and only the tumor is treated.

To learn more about how Philadelphia CyberKnife treats lung tumors with CyberKnife technology, please click here.