Positron emission tomography (PET) is a promising approach for differentiating which patients with inoperable lung cancer will and will not benefit from additional treatment after standard chemotherapy/radiation therapy. Lead investigator Mitch Machtay, MD, Chairman of Radiation Oncology, Seidman Cancer Center, University Hospitals Case Western Medical Center, presented these results at the 2011 annual meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), based on 251 patients with stage III lung cancer at 60 cancer centers around the country.
“Lung cancer remains the number 1 cancer killer in the United States. These findings have the potential to give cancer physicians a new tool to more effectively tailor treatments for patients with locally advanced lung cancer,” Dr Machtay said. “PET scans can show us which patients have the most aggressive tumors, potentially enabling us to intensify their treatment.” He noted that this was “one of the largest studies-of-its-kind to show that PET scans have great potential in predicting the prognosis for patients with inoperable lung cancer. It supports the theory that PET scans add an important new dimension to a physician’s ability to determine which patients need additional cancer therapies to best manage their disease.”
