Introduction: Lung cancer is a leading cause of cancer death in the world. The results from concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CRT) are still disappointing, although long-term survival can be observed in certain populations of patients. Local control is a critical problem in CRT; dose escalation of thoracic radiation (TRT) in CRT has not been effective.
Patients and methods: The authors developed a novel TRT scheme of accelerated hyperfractionation using concomitant boost TRT (ccbRT). Total doses of 64 Gy and 40 Gy were given to the gross tumor volume and elective clinical target volume, respectively, for 20 working days, combined with systemic chemotherapy with cisplatin (day 1) and vinorelbine (days 1, 8) with a 3-week interval (NP regimen). The purpose of this phase II study was to evaluate the efficacy and toxicity of this novel treatment.
Results: From July 2002 to July 2010, 56 patients were enrolled in this study. One patient was excluded from the analysis. All 55 patients completed ccbRT, and 52 patients (94.5%) underwent at least 2 cycles of NP. Grade 3 esophagitis and grade 3 radiation pneumonitis were observed in 18.2% and 3.6% of the patients. Complete response and partial response were achieved in 24.5% and 69.1% of the patients, resulting in a response rate of 93.6%. The median progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) times were 16.7 months and 58.2 months.
Conclusion: CRT using ccbRT with concurrent NP is safe and effective for locally advanced non-small-cell lung cancer, with good PFS and excellent OS.
Keywords: Clinical target volume; Gross tumor volume; Hyperfractionation; Planning target volume; RTOG 0617.
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