email article
Radiation therapy to certain heart structures was associated with increased risk for major adverse cardiac events (MACE) and higher mortality in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), a retrospective study indicated.
Examining outcomes in 700 NSCLC patients who received thoracic radiation, a significant association was observed between MACE and radiation doses of 15 Gy to more than 10% of the left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery volume (V15 ≥10%), after adjusting for baseline heart disease and other factors (adjusted HR 13.90, 95% CI 1.23-157.21,
P=0.03), reported Raymond Mak, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and colleagues.
Similarly, V15 ≥10% was associated with worse all-cause mortality (adjusted HR 1.58, 95% CI 1.09-2.29,