Team finds success with novel lung cancer treatment

An old idea of retreating lung tumors with radiation is new again, especially with the technological advances seen in radiation oncology over the last decade.

The Comprehensive Cancer Center of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is one of only a handful of cancer centers that is attempting to give lung cancer patients out of treatment options a chance to keep the cancer at bay. For these patients, hope lies in a second course of treatment – repeat radiation. Two complementary papers published back-to-back recently in the journal Radiotherapy and Oncology and the Journal of Thoracic Oncology outline the treatment success at Wake Forest Baptist.

“One of the toughest challenges of lung cancer is what to do for patients when the cancer comes back in an area that’s been treated previously with radiation treatment,” said James J. Urbanic, M.D., lead author of the studies and a radiation oncologist at…