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Radiotherapy Enhances Immunotherapy in Lung Cancer
According to the research below, radiotherapy enhances immunotherapy in lung cancer patients. Also, what happens to the quality of life and length of life of the non-small cell lung cancer patient?
I am a long-term survivor of an incurable blood cancer. My cancer resulted in serious bone involvement. Radiation zapped the bone lesions and eliminated the bone pain within weeks.
But here’s the catch. Both radiotherapy and Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) can cause serious side effects. The purpose of this blog post is to explain two evidence-based non-conventional (non-FDA) therapies that could enhance the efficacy of the therapies discussed below as well as minimize the side effects of them.
- Enhancing the gut microbiome can enhance Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs)
- Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy can heal radiation fibrosis aka scarring.
In case you don’t know what your gut microbiome is, watch the video below-
Gut Health Reset: How to Rebuild Your Microbiome Fast!
Chemotherapy and antibiotics can disrupt your gut microbiome. Your previous lung cancer therapies may have damaged your gut health, which may have increased your side effects. Eating to enhance your gut microbiome may be an ongoing challenge so hang in there.
The bottom line is that both radiotherapy and an enhanced gut microbiome may enhance the efficacy of Immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy to enhance your overall survival.
Good luck,
David Emerson
- Cancer Survivor
- Cancer Coach
- Director PeopleBeatingCancer
The role of bone radiotherapy during immune checkpoint inhibitors treatment of non-small-cell lung cancer: a single-institution experience
Background:
Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) represent a keystone of cancer treatment, including non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Unfortunately, the efficacy of ICIs remains poor in patients with bone metastases from NSCLC. Recently, several case reports have suggested the clinical benefit of radiotherapy in advanced NSCLC patients. However, whether this positive effect is applicable during ICI treatment of NSCLC involving bones remains to be established.
Methods:
We retrospectively reviewed the records of patients with bone metastases who received ICIs as monotherapy (anti-PD1 or anti-programmed death-ligand 1) as well as in combination with platinum-based-chemotherapy (carboplatin or cisplatin). We next analyzed the presence or the absence of radiotherapy targeting bone metastases (RT) among these patients during immunotherapy.
Results:
A total of 40 patients were included in this study; among them, 10 (25%) received palliative RT for symptomatic bone metastases during cancer immunotherapy treatment with ICIs (RT group); the remaining 30 (75%) patients did not receive bone irradiation (Non-RT group). We observed that the RT group had a significantly longer overall survival (OS) than the Non-RT group, with a median survival of 16 months in the RT group versus 3 months in the Non-RT group (log-rank test p < 0.048; hazard ratio (HR) for OS = 0.44; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.18–1.00). Similar results were observed with respect to progression-free survival (PFS; log-rank test p < 0.016; HR for PFS = 0.34; 95% CI: 0.15–1.00).
Conclusion:
Our results suggest that radiotherapy to bone metastases may improve ICIs efficacy in patients with bone metastatic NSCLC.
radiotherapy enhances immunotherapy in lung cancer radiotherapy enhances immunotherapy in lung cancer