Delineation Of Clinical Target Volume For Postoperative Radiotherapy In Stage ?A-pN2 Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

With the high loco-regional relapse rate and the improvement of radiation technology, postoperative radiotherapy(PORT) has been widely used for completely resected stage IIIA-pN2 non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC). However, there is still no definitive consensus on clinical target volume for the pN2 subgroup. This review will discuss how to delineate the clinical target volume(CTV) for pN2 subgroups of IIIA-N2 NSCLC based on the published literatures and to investigate the optimal PORT CTV in this cohort of patients. Besides, overall survival(OS), loco-regional recurrence(LR), radiotherapy-related toxicity of this subsets populations in modern PORT era, selection of more proper patients will also be under consideration in this review. In summary, it is appropriate to include involved lymph node stations and uninvolved stations at high risk into PORT CTV for patients with pN2 disease when PORT is administered. PORT can reduce LR and have the tendency of improving OS. In modern radiation technology epoch, PORT can be administered safely with well tolerated toxicity. Clinic-pathologic characteristic may be helpful for selecting proper candidates for PORT.