Dr. Benjamin Movsas, a radiation oncologist at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and moderator of the press briefing, noted that, historically, conventional radiation therapy in patients with inoperable stage I disease has yielded a tumor control rate of only about 40%-50%, contrasting to the nearly 90% seen with SBRT. “Having a 40% 5-year survival in this group of patients is actually a very, very positive result, even though clearly we are always working to do better and improve on that,” he said.
Susan London/Frontline Medical News
Dr. Benjamin Movsas
“We find this to be a very promising approach [at our institution]. We are offering a very precise, localized, millimeter-accurate treatment, which for the most part is extremely well tolerated,” he noted. “We primarily use it for the medically inoperable patients. However, there are also patients who, for their own reasons, may decide to decline surgery. So we’ll tell those patients that they should first consider surgery, but if they decline surgery, this is a secondary alternative.
“All these cases, though, are first presented at a multidisciplinary tumor board where we have thoracic surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists sitting around the table discussing it before we treat any patients,” Dr. Movsas stressed. “So these decisions are made as part of the multidisciplinary team approach.”
Dr. Timmerman disclosed no conflicts of interest relevant to the research.