Helping patients with lung cancer choose between surgery or stereotactic body radiotherapy: the importance of the patient experience

Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) has been rapidly transforming the management of patients with small primary and secondary lung tumours who are either considered unfit for surgery, or who are of borderline fitness for such widely used surgical approaches as lobectomy or segmental resection. The recently published CHISEL trial has confirmed the superiority of SBRT over conventional conformal radiotherapy in patients who are not surgical candidates, both for local disease control and overall survival (1).