Multi-modality treatment of locally advanced lung cancer: a focus on radiotherapy

Lung cancer is the main cause of cancer -related death in the world. Non -small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for the predominance of lung cancers, in more than half of cases NSCLC' patients are already locally advanced to diagnosis. The therapeutic approach in this stage of disease is complicated and it is therefore essential to manage it in a multidisciplinary context. Surgery remains the therapy of choice, but not all patients have operable disease. For resectable patients, a multimodal approach that involves, in addition to surgery, also systemic and radiation therapy (RT), improves treatment outcomes. The treatment of choice for patients not susceptible to surgery is radiotherapy concomitant with chemotherapy. Implementation in RT techniques, the reduction of the treatment volume with the integration of targeted therapy could lead, in the future, to further improvement in local control (LC) overall survival (OS) results. RT therefore comes into play in almost all locally advanced patients. The aim of this article is to describe the role of RT with curative intent in this setting of patients.