Six UK studies investigating stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) are currently open. Many of these involve the treatment of oligometastatic disease at different locations in the body. Members ...of all the trial management groups collaborated to generate a consensus document on appropriate organ at risk dose constraints. Values from existing but older reviews were updated using data from current studies. It is hoped that this unified approach will facilitate standardised implementation of SABR across the UK and will allow meaningful toxicity comparisons between SABR studies and internationally.
On Target 2: Updated Guidance for Image-guided Radiotherapy McNair, H.A.; Franks, K.N.; van Herk, M.
Clinical oncology (Royal College of Radiologists (Great Britain)),
March 2022, 2022-03-00, 20220301, Letnik:
34, Številka:
3
Journal Article
The use of stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) in the UK has expanded over the past decade, in part as the result of several UK clinical trials and a recent NHS England Commissioning through ...Evaluation programme. A UK SABR Consortium consensus for normal tissue constraints for SABR was published in 2017, based on the existing literature at the time. The published literature regarding SABR has increased in volume over the past 5 years and multiple UK centres are currently working to develop new SABR services. A review and update of the previous consensus is therefore appropriate and timely. It is hoped that this document will provide a useful resource to facilitate safe and consistent SABR practice.
Patients treated with curative-intent lung radiotherapy are in the group at highest risk of severe complications and death from COVID-19. There is therefore an urgent need to reduce the risks ...associated with multiple hospital visits and their anti-cancer treatment. One recommendation is to consider alternative dose-fractionation schedules or radiotherapy techniques. This would also increase radiotherapy service capacity for operable patients with stage I-III lung cancer, who might be unable to have surgery during the pandemic.
Here we identify reduced-fractionation for curative-intent radiotherapy regimes in lung cancer, from a literature search carried out between 20/03/2020 and 30/03/2020 as well as published and unpublished audits of hypofractionated regimes from UK centres. Evidence, practical considerations and limitations are discussed for early-stage NSCLC, stage III NSCLC, early-stage and locally advanced SCLC. We recommend discussion of this guidance document with other specialist lung MDT members to disseminate the potential changes to radiotherapy practices that could be made to reduce pressure on other departments such as thoracic surgery. It is also a crucial part of the consent process to ensure that the risks and benefits of undergoing cancer treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic and the uncertainties surrounding toxicity from reduced fractionation have been adequately discussed with patients. Furthermore, centres should document all deviations from standard protocols, and we urge all colleagues, where possible, to join national/international data collection initiatives (such as COVID-RT Lung) aimed at recording the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on lung cancer treatment and outcomes.
In spite of recent improvements in both the technical delivery of radiotherapy and systemic therapy in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, local recurrence rates after radiotherapy remain a ...significant challenge. In the setting of local relapse after radiotherapy, treatments such as surgical resection or radiofrequency ablation are often not appropriate owing to disease and patient factors. Re-irradiation may be a potential treatment option. This overview considers the published evidence and potential treatment strategies.
•There is a lack of prospective clinical evidence detailing outcomes after re-irradiation in lung cancer.•Current evidence suggests re-irradiation is feasible and seems to be well tolerated in patients with lung cancer.•Re-irradiation can be considered either as salvage or palliative therapy if the likely clinical benefits outweigh the risks.
Lung cancer is the third most common type of cancer in the UK, with nearly 50 000 new cases diagnosed a year. Treatments for lung cancer have improved in recent years with the advent of new surgical ...and radiotherapy techniques and the increased use of immunotherapies. These advances have resulted in increasing numbers of patients surviving beyond the completion of their treatment. Lung cancer patients are now not dying from their cancer diagnosis, but from other co-existing pathologies. Lung cancer patients commonly present with multiple comorbidities. Mitigating the effects of poor lifestyles and changing behaviours may improve the efficacy of treatments, reduce side-effects and improve the quality of life for lung cancer patients. Published evidence supports the use of interventions to manage behavioural habits, to optimise the health of patients. There is no consensus as to what, when or how to embed these into the patient pathway. Supporting patients before, during and after their cancer treatments to increase activity, eat well and stop smoking have been seen to decrease side-effects and improve patient outcomes and wellbeing. The challenge is to provide a package of interventions that is acceptable to patients and fits within the patient pathway so as not to conflict with diagnostic and therapeutic activities. This article reviews where we are today with providing behavioural support to optimise the health of lung cancer patients undergoing treatment.
•Patients are surviving their cancer treatments and are living with their comorbidities.•Optimising the health of lung cancer patients will reduce treatment side effects and improve the quality of life.•How and when should lifestyle interventions be offered to lung cancer patients?.
Summary
In this first na tional survey of public hospitals in The Republic of Ireland, we found fracture liaison services (FLS) to be heterogeneous, limited in many cases and poorly supported. A ...national strategy is urgently needed to support the implementation and operation of an FLS, and thus help reduce the burden of fragility fractures for patients and the healthcare system.
Introduction
Fragility/low-trauma fractures are a global concern, whose incidence is rising as the population ages. Many are preventable, and people with a prior fragility fracture are at particularly high risk of further fractures. This patient group is the target of the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) Capture the Fracture campaign, advocating global adoption of fracture liaison services (FLS), with the aim of preventing secondary fragility fractures. We wished to determine the current availability and standards of an FLS in Ireland, ahead of the launch of a National FLS database.
Methods
We devised a questionnaire encompassing the thirteen IOF standards for an FLS and asked all 16 public hospitals with an orthopaedic trauma unit in Ireland, to complete for the calendar year 2019 in patients aged ≥ 50 years.
Results
All sites returned the questionnaire, i.e. 100% response rate. Nine hospitals stated that they have an FLS, additionally one non-trauma hospital running a FLS responded, and were included. These 10 FLS had identified and managed 3444 non-hip fractures in the year 2019. This figure represents 19% of the expected non-hip fragility fracture numbers occurring annually in Ireland. Implementation of the IOF standards was very variable. All sites reported being inadequately resourced to provide a high-quality service necessary to be effective.
Conclusion
The existence and functioning of FLS in Ireland are heterogeneous and suboptimal. A national policy to support the implementation of this programme in line with international standards of patient care is urgently needed.
•Cardiac toxicity from lung cancer radiotherapy is a recognised side effect.•Cardiac death is under-reported in patients who received lung cancer radiotherapy.•This adds to the difficulty of ...investigating radiotherapy related cardiac damage.
Lung cancer is the most common malignancy worldwide. Radical radiotherapy is an essential treatment in the management of early and locally advanced lung cancer. Cardiac events are known to occur following radical radiotherapy for lung cancer. This study examines the burden of cardiac events post radiotherapy, and estimates the accuracy of death certification in patients who received radical radiotherapy for lung cancer.
We conducted a retrospective observational cohort study for all patients receiving radical radiotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) at a large cancer centre between 01/01/2010 to 31/12/2016. Baseline cardiovascular disease and cancer status and treatment data were collected, along with hospital admission data and documented cause of death from the national registry for a median follow-up period of 34 months.
Of 1224 patients included in the analysis, 378 (30.9%) patients had cardiovascular disease at baseline, including 140 (11.4%) with prior myocardial infarction. In the 846 patients without known cardiovascular disease, 451 (53.3%) had a QRISK2 predicted 10-year cardiovascular risk >20% over 10 years. During follow-up, 215 hospitalisations occurred (Incidence rate 6.2 per hundred patient years) which were classified as primarily cardiac, and 622 patients died (18 per 100 patient-years). However, death certificates stated a primary cardiac cause of death in only 33 cases (5.3% of deaths). Notably, 29% of patients dying out of hospital and certified as cancer death did not have documented cancer relapse prior to death, and 61% had no community palliative care input prior to death, implying these events may have been sudden and unexpected.
There is a high prevalence of baseline cardiovascular disease in people undergoing radiotherapy for NSCLC, accompanied by significant rates of post-radiotherapy cardiovascular hospitalisation. However, only a small proportion of deaths are attributed to cardiovascular disease, together with the large amount of sudden deaths observed, this suggests that cardiovascular death is greatly under-reported in official statistics.
PDF
