When giving palliative lung radiation to a patient on immune checkpoint blockade for NSCLC, do you hold immunotherapy?
Most of the palliative lung RT regimens include either 3000 cGy in 10 fractions using 300 cGy per fraction or 3500 cGy in 14 fractions using 250 cGy per fraction. As the experience is limited on the concurrent use of palliative RT with immunotherapy, I withheld immunothearpy while treating the lung lesions. There is an associated risk for pneumonitis reported with immuotherapeutic agents in the recently published papers. Recently while treating CNS lesions with SRT/SRS, I did not withhold immunotherapy on two of my patients and none of them developed any unexpected side effects. I will wait for the mature data to implement any concurrent use of these newer agents with any hypofractionated RT regimens either in the palliative or definitive t...
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