Dr. Heron said his team plans to continue enrolling patients into the trial, with a goal of expanding the current 147 patients to roughly 200 total patients. Moving forward with additional trials, they also will look at treating patients with larger numbers of metastatic lesions and combining stereotactic radiation with emerging treatments such as immunotherapy.

“In combination with immunotherapy, stereotactic radiation therapy may set a new bar for achieving better outcomes, lowering side effects and improving our patients’ quality of life,” said Dr. Heron.


This trial adds to the growing body of evidence supporting the use of stereotactic radiation for oligometastatic cancers. Two randomized, phase II trials presented at the most recent ASTRO Annual Meeting, for example, also found the treatment may lengthen survival, sometimes dramatically, for patients with stage-IV disease. If validated through larger randomized trials, radiation therapy could be utilized as a safe and effective approach to improve outcomes for patients with cancers that have begun to spread throughout the body.


ABOUT ASTRO
The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) is the world’s largest radiation oncology society, with more than 10,000 members who are physicians, nurses, biologists, physicists, radiation therapists, dosimetrists and other health care professionals who specialize in treating patients with radiation therapies. The Society is dedicated to improving patient care through professional education and training, support for clinical practice and health policy standards, advancement of science and research, and advocacy. ASTRO publishes three medical journals, International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics, Practical Radiation Oncology and Advances in Radiation Oncology; developed and maintains an extensive patient website, RT Answers; and created the nonprofit foundation Radiation Oncology Institute.

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