Hypofractionated Radiotherapy for Small Cell Lung Cancer

Current treatments for limited stage small cell lung cancer have poor cure rates. The addition of chest radiation to chemotherapy improves cure rates, but these cancers still come back in the chest 30-50% of the time. Two factors which can improve control and cure rates for this cancer are increasing the chest radiation dose and minimizing the overall time it takes to complete radiation treatments. One method to achieve both of these goals is to give more radiation each day. This study is meant to study how tolerable and effective it would be to increase the intensity of chest radiation for small cell lung cancer patients by increasing the daily radiation dose. We aim to find the highest dose of chest radiotherapy that can be safely given with chemotherapy using this strategy. Patients in this trial will be monitored before, during and after their radiation and chemotherapy treatments for treatment side-effects, how effective treatments are at controlling their cancer and quality of life changes. Results from this trial will help to define more effective radiotherapy doses which are tolerable for this type of lung cancer and the quality of life changes patients experience when they undergo these treatments.