| Abstract: |
Lung cancer remains one of the most common cancers in the United States and the most common cause of cancer death. Approximately 174,000 people are diagnosed with lung cancer annually with approximately 160,000 deaths per year [1, 2]. There are more female deaths from lung cancer than breast, ovarian, and cervical cancers combined. Despite some progress with the use of chemotherapy [3-5], radiation therapy (RT) remains the main curative modality for inoperable nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, the treatment of lung cancerwithRTisone of themost technically challenging procedures in radiation oncology,with five-year survival rates ranging from5-10% and median survival approximately ten months [6-8]. In patients receiving 65 Gy without chemotherapy, only 15% are disease free one year after treatmentwhen assessed by bronchoscopy [3]. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006. |
