Stereotactic body radiotherapy as an alternative to metastasectomy for pulmonary oligometastasis

The lung is a common site of metastasis from malignant tumors. The reported incidence of pulmonary metastasis is 20–54% in patients who died of an extrathoracic malignancy (1). Selected patients undergo pulmonary metastasectomy (PM) for lung metastasis. The number of PMs significantly increased from 2000 to 2011, with average annual increases of 9.4%, 3.6%, and 4.7% for colorectal cancer, breast cancer, and melanoma, respectively, according to the report by Bartlett et al. (2).