Recent advances of radiation therapy for non-small cell lung cancer

Radiation therapy(RT) has been frequently used for patients with inoperable or unresectable non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC). In our series of NSCLC patients without progression of disease at the end of two years after RT, the majority of squamous cell carcinoma patients were alive well after 5 years from RT. On the other hand, half of adenocarcinoma patients had distant failures later. The recent data have indicated that the prognosis for selected favorable patients with unresectable disease will be improved by systemic chemotherapy combined with RT. Furthermore recent innovations in RT have shown promise in the treatment of NSCLC, especially squamous cell carcinoma. For future improvement of the treatment results of NSCLC, it is important that the role of RT be established.