Case closed: another prophylactic cranial irradiation trial for stage 3 non-small cell lung cancer fails to improve overall survival

In a recent study published by De Ruysscher et al. (1), the use of prophylactic cranial irradiation (PCI) significantly reduced the rate of symptomatic brain metastasis development in patients with stage 3 non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) at 2 years. Patients with WHO performance status 0–2 undergoing chemoradiotherapy with or without surgery for their stage 3 disease were randomized to an observation arm or a treatment arm that underwent PCI (36 Gy in 18 fractions, 30 Gy in 12 fractions, or 30 Gy in 10 fractions).