According to new findings presented at the American Society of Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO) 56th annual meeting in San Francisco, California, patients who undergo traditional surgery rather than stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) for the treatment of early stage non-small cell lung cancer fare better in the long-term.
In the study, researchers from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, identified 1,078 patients age 67 and older with NSCLC from Medicare billing records in order to analyze short-term and long-term complications and outcomes associated with traditional surgery compared with radiosurgery.
The study found that while conventional surgery was associated with a greater amount of infections, complications, and death compared with radiosurgery during the first three months after surgery, patients who underwent conventional surgery had fewer complications than those who underwent radiosurgery after 12 months.
The study demonstrated that otherwise healthy patients with early stage NSCLC would fare better if they underwent conventional surgery rather than radiosurgery, but James B. Yu, MD, of the Yale School of Medicine and lead researcher of the study was surprised to see how much fewer long-term complications there were with conventional surgery versus radiosurgery.
Patients who undergo traditional surgery fare better in the long-term.
Patients with early stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who are otherwise healthy fare better over time if they undergo conventional surgery versus less-invasive radiosurgery to remove their cancer, according to a Yale study. The findings are scheduled to be presented at the 56th annual conference of the American Society for Radiation Oncology in San Francisco.
The study used Medicare billing records of 1,078 lung cancer patients age 67 and older from across the United States to assess shorter- and longer-term complications and outcomes related to surgery versus radiosurgery (also known as stereotactic body radiotherapy, or SBRT). The patients were treated in academic and private practice settings of all sizes.
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