On Monday 11 November, we welcomed UK clinical oncologists who met at the RCR to develop lung cancer guidelines by consensus. This is part of a rolling programme of RCR consensus statements aimed at reducing variability in radiotherapy delivery and improving patient outcomes. The final lung cancer consensus statements are expected to be published in early 2020 and plans are underway for the development of head and neck cancer consensus guidelines later next year.
Lung radiotherapy leads from 42 UK cancer centres attended along with patient representatives for a day of lively debate and discussion on lung cancer radiotherapy. Prior to the meeting, statements were drafted by a working party of lung cancer experts, led by chair Dr Ceri Powell (consultant clinical oncologist, South West Wales and Velindre Cancer Centres). Each cancer centre was invited to share an initial draft with their multidisciplinary lung teams and to provide feedback.
The final consensus statements focus on areas not clearly covered by other guidance, and cover a broad range of topics:
- Optimising patients for radical lung cancer radiotherapy
- Technical aspects of radical radiotherapy for lung cancer
- Stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) for early stage stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)
- Combined modality treatment of locally advanced NSCLC
- Radiotherapy for advanced lung cancer
- Treatment of small cell lung cancer
We hope the final guidelines will be useful to every UK radiotherapy department and will help all centres deliver an excellent lung cancer radiotherapy service for patients. We are very grateful to the working group for leading on this important work.