Stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) in operable early stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients: challenge to claim being undisputed gold standard

The standard treatment for operable, early stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is surgical resection, usually lobectomy, with mediastinal lymph node sampling or dissection. However, significant surgical toxicity had been noted in these patients with 90-day mortality rates exceeding 30-day rates. There is also a risk of disease recurrence ranging from 6% to 10% per person-year during the first 4 years after surgery as stated by Lou et al. after an analysis of 1,300 patients who underwent surgery.