( a procedure in which a seed of radi...)Combination Therapy to the Rescue off Lung Cancer Patients,Health

, a procedure in which a "seed" of radioactive material is implanted into the cancer or near it. Patients were diagnosed with Stage I or II lung cancer, meaning the lung cancer in most cases had not spread and was usually smaller than 3 centimeters, though not in all cases. While this study did not address the timing of combined treatment, brachytherapy radiation was typically administered within two hours of thermal ablation while external beam radiation was given within three to four weeks. Rhode Island Hospital may be the only hospital in the world to administer this combined treatment.

The recurrence rate was much lower with the combined treatment. With radiation therapy alone, about 50 percent of tumors recur within six to 12 months. By the end of this study, 24 percent of patients treated with ablation and radiation had recurrences at an average of 44 months. While there was an increased recurrence rate in larger tumors – 33 percent recurred at an average of 34 months – the overall survival rate was the same for patients with large and small tumors.

"We found that just because the tumor returns, that doesn't mean the patient lives less long," Dupuy says.

The combined treatments work because they create a "synergy," the authors write. When tumors are targeted with radiation therapy, oxygen is vital to help the radiation damage DNA and kill cancerous cells. While radiation is most effective in destroying cells around the edges of the tumor, it is less effective at targeting the center of the tumor, which tends to be a low-oxygen environment.

Thermal ablation, on the other hand, heats the tumor to kill cancerous cells – reaching the center of the tumor, but not necessarily killing all the cells at the edges. This can lead to a recurrence of the tumor, and the cancer may spread. Thermal ablation is delivered directly to cancerous cells with the guidance of a diagnostic image showing the tumor's location. However, if some can
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