According to a study published in Radiology researchers found that thermal ablation (TA) and stereotactic radiotherapy (STR) delivered comparable two and five-year outcomes in the treatment of early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)
This retrospective study included 28 834 patients (TA, 1102 patients; SRT, 27 732 patients) were identified in the 2004–2013 National Cancer Database.
There was no statistically significant difference in overall survival between TA and SRT at a mean follow-up of 52 months. Overall survival rates of TA and SRT were 85.4% vs. 86.3% in 1 year, 65.2% vs. 64.5% in 2 years,47.8% vs. 45.9% in 3 yearsand 24.6% vs. 26.1% in 5 years. Unplanned hospital readmission rates were higher (3.7 vs. 0.2%) for patients who underwent TA versus those who underwent SRT.
Thermal ablation has an advantage of enabling physicians to collect biopsy samples during the procedure, while the one-time treatment offers lower direct costs for patients and insurance providers alike.
The authors concluded that TA has equally good results to STR in the treatment of stage 1 non–small cell lung cancer in patients who are deemed inoperable.
