Delivering safe and effective stereotactic body radiation therapy for patients with centrally located early stage non-small cell lung cancer

Stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) combines accurate anatomic targeting of a tumor with the precise delivery of high doses of radiation per fraction in an attempt to ablate the tumor while sparing surrounding normal tissues (1). SBRT has been described in the treatment of lung cancer since the mid-1990s (2). The initial uses of lung SBRT were in patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who were medically inoperable or refused surgery, but it has also emerged as an effective treatment option for medical operable NSCLC patients (3,4), patients with early stage SCLC (5), and patients with parenchymal metastasis from lung and other malignancies.