Dr. Choy Discusses Therapy for Oligometastatic Lung Cancer

Hak Choy, MD, Nancy B. & Jake L. Hamon Distinguished Chair in Therapeutic Oncology Research, Department of Radiation Oncology, UT Southwestern Medical Center, discuses therapy for patients with oligometastatic lung cancer.

This is a unique subset of patients whose cancer has spread, but only to a limited area, says Choy. The overall prognosis for these patients is better than stage IV, but not necessarily as good as stage III. Choy says that the focus now is on overall survival, not just progression free survival. To achieve that, some patients may benefit from aggressive upfront local therapy. Options for aggressive upfront therapy are local radiation therapy or radiation plus immunotherapy, which Choy says is a hot topic.

Patients who have limited metastases or limited progression after initial chemotherapy or immunotherapy are the best-suited candidates for local therapy with either radiation therapy or radiation plus immunotherapy, according to Choy. Local therapy can be applied to about 3 to 5 disease sites, he adds.