ASTRO: SABR Offers Long-Term Benefits Comparable to Surgery for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

MONDAY, Oct. 6, 2025 (HealthDay News) — For patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) offers long-term survival outcomes comparable to surgery, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology, held from Sept. 27 to Oct. 1 in San Francisco.

Troy Kleber, M.D., from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and colleagues reported long-term clinical outcomes among patients with NSCLC. Eighty patients were treated with SABR, and a matched cohort of 80 patients underwent video-assisted thoracoscopic lobectomy with mediastinal lymph node dissection. Participants were followed for a median of 8.3 years.

The researchers found that 11 percent of the patients undergoing surgery had occult lymph node involvement discovered on surgical pathology and 14 percent received adjuvant therapy. In the surgery group and the SABR cohort, median overall survival was 11.4 years and not yet reached, respectively. No significant difference was seen between the groups in overall survival (at seven years: 81 versus 70 percent in the SABR versus surgery groups; at 10 years: 69 versus 66 percent), lung cancer-specific survival (92 versus 89 percent), or recurrence-free survival (57 versus 65 percent). Among 28 percent of 60 patients undergoing SABR who responded to long-term quality of life and financial toxicity questionnaires, 53 percent denied any financial burden on themselves or their family due to radiation-related costs.

“This highly targeted, noninvasive treatment achieved the same long-term overall survival as lobectomy, while offering many patients an easier recovery and potentially better quality of life,” senior author Joe Y. Chang, M.D., Ph.D., also from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, said in a statement.

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