Dr. Mirhadi on Patient Populations of Lung Cancer Optimal for Radiation

Amin J. Mirhadi, MD, associate professor of radiation oncology, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, discusses patient populations of lung cancer who should be treated with radiation therapy.

The most common treatment option for patients with stage I lung cancer is radiation therapy, which is meant for patients who are either inoperable or forgo surgery. Radiation for patients with stage I lung cancer is an effective treatment, with about an 85% to 95% success rate in terms of eradicating the tumor, says Mirhadi.

Radiation therapy is also for patients with stage III lung cancer who have, essentially, the same primary tumor as those with stage I lung cancer but the tumor has spread to the mediastinal lymph nodes. For that patient population, radiation can be given in a standard-fractionated approach to treat all areas of active disease that are noted on the patient’s imaging. Those are the most common scenarios that radiation oncologists are involved with in the patient’s therapy, concludes Mirhadi.