CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians | 2019
Lung cancer radiation may increase the risk of major adverse cardiac events
Abstract
“What we’re seeing now, especially with immunotherapy and other advances in cancer treatments, is that many lung cancer patients are living longer,” says Raymond H. Mak, MD, a coauthor of the study and a thoracic radiation oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. “So it’s more important than ever to focus more on how to minimize the cardiac risks years after treating patients.” Dr. Mak, who also is senior physician and disease center leader in radiation oncology and thoracic oncology as well as an assistant professor of radiation oncology at Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, points to recent clinical trials that report 5-year survival rates of 15% to 20% and median survivals of greater than 2 years for patients with stage III NSCLC.