When is postoperative radiation appropriate for a typical lung carcinoid tumor?

Postoperative radiotherapy in usually NOT indicated for a typical thoracic carcinoid tumor which are obviously considered low-grade neuroendocrine tumors as opposed to atypical carcinoid which are intermediate grade.

The risk of nodal metastases for a typical carcinoid is low, on the order of < 5-10%. Role of adjuvant chemotherapy or radiation therapy is controversial as those truly with low-grade histology, even node positive do very well without adjuvant therapy. Thus, I would not usually rec...

When carcinoid tumors behave badly I think of them like nonsmall cell lung cancers. I'd treat positive margins or positive mediastinal nodes. I use standard postop doses and targets

Anticipating your next question....

No. There really isn't good data for this. No one has series big enough with good data in the modern era.