A patient was referred to me after a low anterior resection for rectal cancer. Her preoperative staging suggested an early tumor, and she underwent a primary resection. At the time of surgery, she was found to have a minimal T3 lesion with one positive lymph node. Her tumor was in the high rectum, and she underwent a successful mesorectal excision with sphincter preservation. Postoperatively, we discussed radiation, and our recommendation was for treatment. Radiation was delivered with concurrent chemotherapy with precision, and her acute gastrointestinal symptoms were well managed.

Purpose: Lung cancer screening with low-dose CT (LDCT) demonstrated reduced mortality in the National Lung Screening Trial, yet there is debate as to whether the reported efficacy can translate into comparable effectiveness with community-based screening. The authors' purpose is to report the baseline patient characteristics and malignancy rate in the first 18 months after implementing a lung cancer screening program in an integrated community health system.Methods: Patients were screened at 1 of 10 participating community-based centers within a 22-hospital system from 2013 to 2015. LDCT examinations were interpreted by 1 of 20 radiologists using structured reporting and an internally developed tracking system. Manual chart review was performed to ascertain the malignancy detection rate.Results: A total of 357 patients were screened with LDCT. Of these, 80 patients were ineligible and 3 declined enrollment. The remaining 274 patients satisfied accepted screening criteria and were enrolled in the program. Malignancy was detected in a total of 11 enrollees (4.0%), 8 with lung cancer and 3 with extrapulmonary primary malignancies. Three patients (1.1%) were diagnosed with early-stage lung cancer and received definitive therapy.Conclusions: Early-stage lung cancer was detected with LDCT screening in an integrated community health system at a rate similar to other trials.

Purpose . To evaluate our community-based institutional experience with plaque brachytherapy for uveal melanomas with a focus on local control rates, factors impacting disease progression, and dosimetric parameters impacting treatment toxicity. Methods and Materials . Our institution was retrospectively reviewed from 1996 to 2011; all patients who underwent plaque brachytherapy for uveal melanoma were included. Follow-up data were collected regarding local control, distant metastases, and side effects from treatment. Analysis was performed on factors impacting treatment outcomes and treatment toxicity. Results . A total of 107 patients underwent plaque brachytherapy, of which 88 had follow-up data available. Local control at 10 years was 94%. Freedom from progression (FFP) and overall survival at 10 years were 83% and 79%, respectively. On univariate analysis, there were no tumor or dosimetric treatment characteristics that were found to have a prognostic impact on FFP. Brachytherapy treatment was well tolerated, with clinically useful vision (>20/200) maintained in 64% of patients. Statistically significant dosimetric relationships were established with cataract, glaucoma, and retinopathy development (greatest P=0.05). Conclusions . Treatment with plaque brachytherapy demonstrates excellent outcomes in a community-based setting. It is well tolerated and should remain a standard of care for COMS medium sized tumors.

BACKGROUND:The combination of chemotherapy with thoracic radiotherapy (TRT) compared with TRT alone has been shown to confer a survival advantage for good performance status patients with stage III non-small cell lung cancer. However, it is not known whether sequential or concurrent delivery of these therapies is the optimal combination strategy.METHODS:A total of 610 patients were randomly assigned to two concurrent regimens and one sequential chemotherapy and TRT regimen in a three-arm phase III trial. The sequential arm included cisplatin at 100 mg/m2 on days 1 and 29 and vinblastine at 5 mg/m2 per week for 5 weeks with 63 Gy TRT delivered as once-daily fractions beginning on day 50. Arm 2 used the same chemotherapy regimen as arm 1 with 63 Gy TRT delivered as once-daily fractions beginning on day 1 [corrected]. Arm 3 used cisplatin at 50 mg/m2 on days 1, 8, 29, and 36 with oral etoposide at 50 mg twice daily for 10 weeks on days 1, 2, 5, and 6 with 69.6 Gy delivered as 1.2 Gy twice-daily fractions beginning on day 1. The primary endpoint was overall survival, and secondary endpoints included tumor response and time to tumor progression. Kaplan-Meier analyses were used to assess survival, and toxic effects were examined using the Wilcoxon rank sum test. All statistical tests were two-sided.RESULTS:Median survival times were 14.6, 17.0, and 15.6 months for arms 1-3, respectively. Five-year survival was statistically significantly higher for patients treated with the concurrent regimen with once-daily TRT compared with the sequential treatment (5-year survival: sequential, arm 1, 10% [20 patients], 95% confidence interval [CI] = 7% to 15%; concurrent, arm 2, 16% [31 patients], 95% CI = 11% to 22%, P = .046; concurrent, arm 3, 13% [22 patients], 95% CI = 9% to 18%). With a median follow-up time of 11 years, the rates of acute grade 3-5 nonhematologic toxic effects were higher with concurrent than sequential therapy, but late toxic effects were similar.CONCLUSION:Concurrent delivery of cisplatin-based chemotherapy with TRT confers a long-term survival benefit compared with the sequential delivery of these therapies.

For patients with stage III non-small-cell lung cancer with unresectable or inoperable tumors, definitive chemoradiotherapy is often utilized. Historically, local control and overall survival rates have been poor. In an effort to improve local control, new chemotherapeutic agents in combination with higher doses of radiotherapy have been investigated. Early dose escalation trials date back to the 1980s, and the feasibility and efficacy of dose escalation for patients with inoperable stage III lung cancer continue to be topics of investigation. Herein, we review the evolution of chemotherapy as it relates to treatment of unresectable stage III lung cancer, and we outline the early and the more recent dose escalation studies. While dose escalation appears to provide a modest benefit in terms of preventing local failure and improving overall survival, advances in diagnostic imaging and radiotherapy treatment have possibly resulted in selection of a more favorable patient population. These variables make statements regarding the benefit of dose escalation challenging.

Purpose: Patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) 93-11 trial received radiation doses of 70.9, 77.4, 83.8, or 90.3 Gy. The locoregional control and survival rates were similar among the various dose levels. We investigated the effect of the gross tumor volume (GTV) on the outcome.Methods and Materials: The GTV was defined as the sum of the volumes of the primary tumor and involved lymph nodes. The tumor response, median survival time (MST), and progression-free survival (PFS) were analyzed separately for smaller (<= 45 cm(3)) vs. larger (>45 cm(3)) tumors.Results: The distribution of the GTV was as follows: <= 45 cm(3) in 79 (49%) and >45 cm(3) in 82 (51%) of 161 patients. The median GTV was 47.3 cm(3). NO status and female gender were associated with better tumor responses. Patients with smaller (<= 45 cm(3)) tumors achieved a longer MST and better PFS than did patients with larger (>45 cm(3)) tumors (29.7 vs. 13.3 months, p < 0.0001; and 15.8 vs. 8.3 months, p < 0.0001, respectively). Increasing the radiation dose had no effect on the MST or PFS. On multivariate analysis, only a smaller GTV was a significant prognostic factor for improved MST and PFS (hazard ratio [HR], 2.12, p = 0.0002; and HR, 2.0, p = 0.0002, respectively). The GTV as a continuous variable was also significantly associated with the MST and PFS (HR, 1.59, p < 0.0001; and HR, 1.39, p < 0.0001, respectively).Conclusions: Radiation dose escalation up to 90.3 Gy did not result in improved MST or PFS. The tumor responses were greater in node-negative patients and women. An increasing GTV was strongly associated with decreased MST and PFS. Future radiotherapy trials patients might need to use stratification by tumor volume. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc.

Purpose: To test the Washington University (WU) patient dataset, analysis of which suggested that superior-to-inferior tumor position, maximum dose, and D35 (minimum dose to the hottest 35% of the lung volume) were valuable to predict radiation pneumonitis (PP), against the patient database from Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) trial 9311.Methods and Materials: The entire dataset consisted of 324 patients receiving definitive conformal radiotherapy for non-small-cell lung cancer (WU = 219, RTOG 9311 = 129). Clinical, dosimetric, and tumor location parameters were modeled to predict RP in the individual datasets and in a combined dataset. Association quality with RP was assessed using Spearman's rank correlation (r) for univariate analysis and multivariate analysis; comparison between subgroups was tested using the Wilcoxon rank sum test.Results: The WU model to predict RP performed poorly for the RTOG 9311 data. The most predictive model in the RTOG 9311 dataset was a single-parameter model, D15 (r = 0.28). Combining the datasets, the best derived model was a two-parameter model consisting of mean lung dose and superior-to-inferior gross tumor volume position (r = 0.303). An equation and nomogram to predict the probability of RP was derived using the combined patient population.Conclusions: Statistical models derived from a large pool of candidate models resulted in well-tuned models for each subset (WU or RTOG 9311), which did not perform well when applied to the other dataset. However, when the data were combined, a model was generated that performed well on each data subset. The final model incorporates two effects: greater risk due to inferior lung irradiation, and greater risk for increasing normal lung mean dose. This formula and nomogram may aid clinicians during radiation treatment planning for lung cancer. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc.

Stage IIIB includes patients with T4, any N, M0, and any T, N3, M0. Surgery may be indicated only for carefully selected T4N0M0 patients with or without neoadjuvant chemotherapy or chemoradiotherapy. Patients with N3 lymph node involvement are not considered as surgical candidates. For patients with unresectable disease, good performance score, and minimal weight loss, treatment with combined chemotherapy and radiotherapy has resulted in better survival than treatment with radiotherapy alone. Multiple daily fractions of radiotherapy have not resulted in improved survival compared with standard fractionation once daily. Concurrent chemoradiotherapy appears to be associated with improved survival compared with sequential chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Treatment of stage IIIB due to malignant pleural effusion is addressed in the section that deals with stage IV disease.