A More Exact Science

Baylor studies technology's potential to improve lung cancer treatment

Despite amazing advances in cancer treatment, certain forms of the disease remain extremely difficult to treat successfully. Some types of lung cancer-the leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States according to the American Cancer Society (ACS)-fall into this category.

This year alone, there will be more than 172,000 new cases of lung cancer, says the ACS. Even more troubling, nearly 60 percent of people diagnosed with lung cancer die within one year of their diagnosis, and nearly 75 percent die within two years-a statistic that has not improved over the last decade.

But Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas (Baylor Dallas) hopes to contribute to the development of an improved treatment for lung cancer through its participation in a national study of a high-tech device called the CyberKnife.

The study, sponsored by the device's manufacturer, will use the CyberKnife in the treatment of inoperable early-stage lung cancer at the Baylor Radiosurgery Center.

Pinpointing without pain
The CyberKnife is a noninvasive radiosurgery system that painlessly treats tumors with pinpointed beams of radiation that converge on the tumor. Appropriate for use on tumors anywhere in the body when radiation treatment is indicated, the CyberKnife precisely delivers a very high dose of radiation to the tumor with minimal injury to surrounding healthy tissue.

"This is an exciting and potentially very effective treatment option for patients who previously had little hope," explains Brian Berger, M.D., who is the study's principal investigator and is on the medical staff at Baylor Dallas.

About the study
To be eligible for the study, patients must have a localized form of lung cancer that is medically inoperable. The only existing treatment options for these patients are conventional radiation or chemotherapy, which Dr. Berger says are not particularly successful in most of these cases.

Study participants will receive three CyberKnife treatments over a two-week period. Conventional methods would require roughly 30 treatments over six weeks. To prepare patients for the outpatient CyberKnife procedure, gold markers are placed in or around the tumor to help guide the movements of the device, keeping it focused on the tumor even as it moves with the patient's breathing.

Richard E. Wood, M.D., chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Baylor Dallas and co-investigator of the trial, says, "We hope that the treatment conducted in this study will provide promising results for patients with lung cancer. Baylor will follow study participants long-term, and we hope to discover significant benefits for these and future patients."

"We believe the CyberKnife will improve local control rates, which will hopefully translate into improved survival," Dr. Berger says. "The decreased radiation dose to the surrounding healthy tissue should also reduce the risk of complications and improve overall quality of life."