Survival of patients with unresectable non-small cell lung cancer following 6,000 rad megavoltage radiotherapy.

One hundred and fifty-seven patients with histologically proven, locally advanced, unresectable or inoperable non-small cell lung cancer were treated in a uniform fashion with external-beam megavoltage radiotherapy. Patients received a continuous course of 6,000 rad in 7½ weeks (four fractions of 200 rad per fraction each week). The comparatively high, uncorrected one-year survival rate of 48.7 percent, and uncorrected two-year survival rate of 25.7 percent, would be expected following uniform treatment with a relatively high external-beam tumor dose. The five-year uncorrected actuarial survival rate of 2.7 percent demonstrates that although the median survival can be increased by the use of higher radiation doses and better delivery technique, the ultimate cure rate and prognosis for inoperable and unresectable non-small cell lung cancer remains poor with current equipment and methods of radiotherapy.