Avoiding Cardiac Toxicity in Lung Cancer Patients Treated With Curative-intent Radiotherapy

Radiotherapy plays a major role in the treatment of lung cancer and recent advances in radiotherapy have led to better cure rates. However, the radiotherapy dose needed to destroy the cancer cells can unfortunately also damage the surrounding organs, such as the heart. The precise mechanism of damage and which areas of the heart are more sensitive to radiation is not currently known. This project uses the analysis of large amounts of existing radiotherapy treatment data to determine this. Establishing detailed radiotherapy dose limits for the heart and the heart's sub-structures will lead to the delivery of heart-sparing radiotherapy, where possible, in lung cancer patients treated in Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. The investigators estimate that this should lead to an improvement in one-year survival of approximately 10%.