Post-Op Radiation Ups Survival in Lung Cancer Patients

Having radiation after lung cancer surgery appears to double some patients’ survival odds, U.S. researchers said Monday.

In fact, a new study suggests that patients with lung cancer that has spread to mediastinal lymph nodes — or those located between the chest, breastbone and spine — who receive radiation therapy after surgery and chemotherapy live twice as long as patients who do not receive post-surgery radiation.

The study was part of a larger trial — dubbed ANITA 1 — which examined the effectiveness of chemotherapy after surgery in 840 patients with non-small cell lung cancer whose cancer had spread to the lymph nodes.

Those who underwent chemotherapy and radiation after surgery lived almost two years longer — 47 versus 24 months — than those patients who had chemotherapy alone.

This is the first time that a clinical trial has examined the effectiveness of radiation after surgery for lung cancer, said Jean-Yves Douillard, lead author of the study and a medical oncologist at the Centre Rene Gauducheau in St Herblain, France. The results show that radiation treatment should be considered for resected non-small cell lung cancer with involved mediastinal lymph nodes in addition to chemotherapy.

But he cautioned that the study needs to be confirmed in a prospective randomized trial of radiation, in addition to chemotherapy.

The results were prsented Monday at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology’s 48th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, Pa.