Hypofractionated Radiotherapy With Carboplatin and Paclitaxel in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

This study is designed to evaluate the feasibility of hypofractionated IMRT to 62.5 Gy in 25 fractions (2.5 Gy/fraction) with 4D PET/CT-based radiation treatment planning and concurrent carboplatin and paclitaxel in Stage IIIA or Stage IIIB NSCLC subjects. Hypofractionated IMRT allows escalation of the biological effective dose (BED) to the tumor and reduces the radiation treatment duration to 5 weeks. Increasing the BED without protracting the RT course may be a more effective means of dose escalation than simply increasing the total dose but using only 2 Gy/fraction, as was tested in RTOG 0617. Investigators require the use of advanced treatment planning techniques, including 4D CT simulation, volume delineation utilizing PET/CT to identify gross disease and IMRT to minimize the total volume of normal tissue receiving a high dose of radiation. As minimal published work has evaluated hypofractionated RT regimens for Stage III NSCLC with concurrent chemotherapy, investigators selected a moderately escalated dose/fraction of 2.5 Gy for evaluation in combination with concurrent carboplatin and paclitaxel.