Efficacy and Toxicity of Robotic Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy of Lung Metastases in Patients With Oligometastatic Disease.

Background: Stereotactic body radiotherapy is a locally effective treatment for lung metastases in patients with oligometastatic disease, a modern variant of which is robotic (rSBRT). Since it is unclear which factors determine the success of rSBRT, we investigated a cohort of patients with lung metastases treated with rSBRT.

Patients And Methods: In our retrospective single-center analysis, we included patients with oligometastatic disease of different cancer types who underwent SBRT of lung metastases using an Accuray Cyberknife device between 2012 and 2019. We evaluated local control rate (LC), progression-free (PFS) and overall (OS) survival, and toxicity. Multivariate analysis was performed to identify independent factors associated with the efficacy and toxicity of rSBRT.

Results: A total of 70 lung metastases of 54 patients were evaluated. The 4-year Kaplan-Meier estimate for LC, PFS and OS were 72.0%, 12.4% and 49.7%, respectively. Cox regression showed that LC of metastases of colorectal carcinoma and metastases treated with a biological effective dose at an α/β-ratio of 10 (BED) of <100 Gy was significantly worse than for other metastases. Patients suffered from grade I-II pneumonitis in 21.4% of cases treated with rSBRT (grade I: 20.0%; grade II: 1.4%).

Conclusion: rSBRT is an effective and safe therapy for lung metastases. A BED of >100 Gy should be aimed for, especially for potentially radioresistant histologies such as colorectal carcinoma.