"Elekta EKTAB.ST today announced new data demonstrating stereotactic body radiation therapy SBRT is a safe treatment option for earlystage lung cancer patients aged  or older. The results which were based on data from more than  patients across five institutions that comprise the Elekta Lung Research Group are available online and will be published in the July  print issue of International Journal of Radiation Oncology  Biology  Physics http The study evaluated safety and efficacy outcomes of  patient reports collected in a multiinstitutional database. Patients were treated with SBRT for earlystage lung cancer between  and  and followed for a median of . years. The cohort included  patients under  years of age  patients ages  to  years and  patients aged  years or more which included  patients aged  years or more. The median age was  years range to .  Study results show no significant differences among the three age groups with respect to year local recurrence regional recurrence distant metastases or the incidence of grade  or higher toxicity. Causespecific survival was similar among all three age groups . to . percent. Twoyear overall survival was lower in older patients which is likely related to other medical issues.   Older patients are often not considered for radiation therapy due to concerns about their ability to tolerate treatment. The results of our study clearly support the use of SBRT for elderly patients especially those who may not be able to tolerate longer courses of radiotherapy or more invasive treatment options says Meredith Giuliani MBBS FRCPC MEd a radiation oncologist in the Cancer Clinical Research Unit at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre University Health Network in Toronto and lead study author. Radiation oncologists need to work closely with our peers in other parts of the medical community to ensure that patients with diagnosed or suspected earlylung cancer are evaluated for potential treatment with SBRT regardless of age. This study is the largest series of its type to evaluate SBRT outcomes in patients aged  years and older says Joel Goldwein MD Senior Vice President Medical Affairs for Elekta. In addition to providing important support for using SBRT to treat earlystage lung cancer in elderly patients these findings highlight the value of multiinstitutional collaborations and large data sets that can provide statistically meaningful answers to critical questions about treatment outcome and guide clinical decision making.  The Elekta Lung Research Group ELRG is an international collaboration of physicians and physicists that is evaluating clinical outcomes in earlystage nonsmall cell lung cancer patients. To date they have accumulated data on close to  such patients and identified medical and technical factors that affect tumor control and toxicity. Their collective experience is among the largest multinational series of patients treated with imageguided SBRT to date. The ELRG includes participants from William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak Michigan Princess Margaret Cancer Centre Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia Pennsylvania JuliusMaximilians University of Wrzburg in Wrzburg Germany and The Netherlands Cancer InstituteAntoni van Leeuwenhoek hospital in Amsterdam The Netherlands. Disclosure This research was partially supported by Elekta through a research grant with all institutions being members of the Elekta Lung Research Group. This work and these data however are the intellectual property of the individual group members and their sponsoring institutions. The authors declare no other conflicts of interest.  The following files are available for download httpmb.cision.comMain.pdfPDF   SOURCE Elekta"