Breaking the dose ceiling: proton therapy for locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer

Chang et al. recently reported on the final outcomes of a phase II trial evaluating the use of concurrent chemotherapy and passively scattered proton therapy (PSPT) in patients with unresectable stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (1). Of note, the dose of proton radiotherapy used in this trial, 74 Gy relative biological effectiveness (RBE), is one of the highest proton radiation doses delivered with concurrent chemotherapy that has been prospectively evaluated in this group of patients to date.