Cancer bronchique non à petites cellules

[Postoperative radiotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer: Efficacy, target volume, dose]

The rate of local failure of stage IIIA-N2 non-small cell lung cancer is 20 to 40%, even if they are managed with surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy. Postoperative radiotherapy improves local control, but its benefit on global survival remains to be demonstrated. Considered for many years as an adjuvant treatment option for pN2 cancers, it continues nevertheless to be deemed too toxic. What is the current status of postoperative radiotherapy? The Lung Adjuvant Radiotherapy Trial (Lung ART) phase III trial should give us a definitive, objective response on global survival, but inclusion of patients is difficult. The results are consequently delayed. The aim of this review is to show all the results about efficacy and tolerance of postoperative radiotherapy and to define the target volume and dose to prescribe.

[Esophageal toxicity of radiation therapy: clinical risk factors and management]

Acute radiation-induced esophagitis includes all clinical symptoms (odynophagia, dysphagia) occurring within 90 days after thoracic irradiation start. Its severity can be graded using RTOG and CTCAE scales. The clinical risk factors are: age, female gender, initial performance status, pre-therapeutic body mass index, pre-therapeutic dysphagia, tumoral and nodal stage, delivered dose, accelerated hyperfractionned radiotherapy, concomitant association of chemotherapy to radiotherapy and response to the treatment. The dosimetric parameters predictive of esophagitis are: mean dose, V(20Gy), V(30Gy), V(40Gy), V(45Gy) and V(50Gy). Amifostine is the only drug to have a proven radioprotective efficacy (evidence level C, ESMO recommendation grade III). The medical management of esophagitis associates a diet excluding irritant food, medication against gastroesophageal reflux, analgesic treatment according to the WHO scale and management of dehydration and denutrition by enteral feeding.

[Targeted therapies and radiation therapy in non-small cell lung cancer]

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death. Between 80-85% of lung cancers are non-small cell lung carcinomas. One third of the patients are diagnosed with locally advanced stage. In this condition, concomitant radio-chemotherapy is the standard treatment for patients with good performance status. Despite important improvements in the last years, non-small cell lung carcinoma prognosis remains poor, with high rates of both local recurrences and metastases. The heterogeneity of molecular characteristics of non-small cell lung carcinoma cells and a better knowledge of potential targets offer promising developments for new pharmacologic agents. Hereafter we will review the currently most studied pathways and the most promising ones for the treatment of locally advanced unresectable non-small cell lung carcinoma. Two of the most attractive pathways where new agents have been developed and assessed in combination with thoracic radiotherapy or radiochemotherapy are the EGFR pathway (either with the use of monoclonal antibodies or tyrosine kinase inhibitors) and the angiogenesis inhibition. The development of targeted agents could lead to individualized therapeutic combinations taking into account the intrinsic characteristics of tumor cells. Pharmacological modulation of tumour cells radiosensitivity by targeted therapies is only starting, but yet offers promising perspectives.