Assessment of Precision Irradiation in Early NSCLC and Interstitial Lung Disease

For patients with ILD and concurrent early-stage lung cancer who are not candidates for surgery, data showing high rates of toxicity have led to a difficult clinical dilemma, since there are few alternate treatment options. The option of delivering no treatment whatsoever, which avoids any risk of treatment-related toxicity, is associated with a high risk of death due to the lung cancer itself. Stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) is a newer radiotherapy approach which uses modern radiotherapy planning and targeting technologies to precisely deliver larger, ablative doses of radiotherapy. SABR has been associated with high rates of local control. A major advantage of SABR is that in general, the toxicity profile is very favorable, even in patients with substantial co-morbid conditions. It is possible that currently-used doses and fractionations of SABR, when given with strict planning criteria to minimize the risk of lung toxicity, have only a modest risk of treatment-related toxicity and represent the best possible approach. This study will examine SABR versus a historical control of untreated stage I non-small cell lung cancer with Overall survival (OS) as the endpoint. OS was selected as it objectively reflects the potential benefits of treatment (i.e. extended survival), the harms of treatment (grade 5 toxicity), and the natural history of the ILD disease process itself.