Stereotactic Radiotherapy or Lobectomy for Stage I Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer?

Surgery is the current gold standard for operable clinical stage I non-small cell lung cancer, but stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) works well for medically inoperable patients. Is SABR safe to offer when surgery is possible?

For the December #radonc journal club, we will discuss a pooled analysis of two phase III trials comparing lobectomy to stereotactic radiotherapy that stopped because not enough patients could be enrolled in either study alone.  Dr. Joe Chang, Professor of Radiation Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center, joins us to discuss the results on Sunday December 20th for live chat hour 8-9 PM Central Standard Time. Open discuss begins 6 AM leading up to the live chat hour.

We will discuss the following topics:

1. What is the current role of stereotactic radiotherapy in early stage non-small cell lung cancer?
2. How were these two studies similar and different in design?
3. How safe and effective were lobectomy and stereotactic radiotherapy in this analysis?
4. Based upon this study, what are the barriers to future research comparing these two treatments?

Special thanks to Dr. Cassandra Coburn, senior editor at the Lancet Oncology for helping making this article available for the journal club. You can access it here 12/16-12/21/2015

To learn more about how to participate, here is our Twitter 101 for #radonc journal club. Feel free to ping us at @Rad_Nation as well, we look forward to you joining us!