Modern radiotherapy for inoperable non-small cell lung cancer

Currently, lung cancer remains the main problem in clinical oncology, as its incidence in industrialized countries has continued to increase steadily over the past decades. This form of malignancy causes one-third and one-fifth of deaths among men and women, respectively.Historically, surgery has been the standard treatment for local forms of non-small cell lung cancer. However, more than a quarter of patients with this disease, who are usually elderly patients, cannot undergo surgical treatment due to the presence of concomitant diseases, or they emotionally refuse to carry out such an aggressive method of treatment. A new standard method of non-invasive treatment for inoperable patients, stereotactic ablative radiotherapy, provides a high level of local control over the tumor process with the results, which may not be inferior to those of surgery. Stereotactic ablative radiotherapy is usually well tolerated by patients with both peripheral and centrally located tumors.At present, more and more research is being conducted on the use of stereotactic radiotherapy, including hadron radiotherapy, particularly for locally advanced forms of non-small cell lung cancer.