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PERSPECTIVE article

Front. Oncol.
Sec. Thoracic Oncology
Volume 14 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2024.1541527

The Role of Radiotherapy in Small Cell Lung Cancer: A New Paradigm for the Radiation Oncologist

Provisionally accepted
Borghetti Paolo Borghetti Paolo 1*Sara Ramella Sara Ramella 2Umberto Ricardi Umberto Ricardi 3
  • 1 Radiation Oncology Department, ASST Spedali Civili and University of Brescia, BRESCIA, Italy
  • 2 Department of Radiation Oncology, Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome, Rome, Italy
  • 3 Department of Oncology, University of Turin, Turin, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is an aggressive tumor that presents in most cases as a metastatic disease. The prognosis is poor, but the advent of immunotherapy has rekindled hopes for outcomes.Radiotherapy plays a crucial role in this oncological scenario, and there are still many open questions on the correct application of radiotherapy and its integration with chemotherapy and immunotherapy.These issues are of great interest to the oncology community; among these, in particular, there are the choice of optimal fractionation and total dose for thoracic radiotherapy in limited SCLC and its biological implications, the role of prophylactic cranial irradiation and thoracic consolidation in the context of modern treatments with chemoimmunotherapy in extensive SCLC, the role and indications of stereotactic radiotherapy in oligometastatic scenario and finally the complex clinical and multidisciplinary management of SCLC. This perspective article aims to describe the strengths and limitations of the role of radiotherapy in SCLC, highlighting the critical role of radiotherapy and the radiation oncologist, with the need to implement specific knowledge and skills on SCLC.

    Keywords: Small Cell Lung Cancer, Radiotherapy, Immunothearpy, Multidisciplinary team, radiation oncologist

    Received: 07 Dec 2024; Accepted: 31 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Paolo, Ramella and Ricardi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Borghetti Paolo, Radiation Oncology Department, ASST Spedali Civili and University of Brescia, BRESCIA, Italy

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.