Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy in Stage II/III Non Small Cell Lung Cancer

It is apparent that local control for Non-small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) remains a significant problem. Conventional radiation therapy techniques have limitations for the dose that can be delivered to a chest tumor mass due to the adjacent dose limiting organs. Mounting evidence supports the use of hypofractionated stereotactically delivered radiation therapy to control lung cancer with acceptable toxicity profiles. Thus the investigators propose to increase the doses of radiation to residual masses of NSCL to a BED \> 100 Gy by the addition of two fractions of stereotactically delivered boost radiation therapy to residual disease post-conventional chemoradiation to at least 59.4 Gy in 180 cGy fractions. Using the linear quadratic equation to model doses of radiation therapy, 59.4 Gy would have a BED of approximately 70 Gy. Single fraction stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) of 10 Gy would have a BED of approximately 20 Gy. Thus the addition of two fractions of 10Gy of SBRT to limited volumes of PET residual disease would theoretically result in higher degrees of local control of lung cancer masses, achieving a minimum cumulative BED of approximately 110Gy-equivalent.