UCLA Journal of Radiation Oncology January 1, 2022 - Flipbook - Page 22
UCLA RADIATION ONCOLOGY JOURNAL
adenocarcinoma of the lung in 2018. Frustrated
that national campaigns implied lung cancer
stems only from smoking, the Colorado couple
made a white ribbon out of plywood in their
garage to encourage greater awareness of the
disease.
with early-stage lung cancer, Dr. Moghanaki
is leading the Veterans Affairs Lung Cancer
Surgery or Stereotactic Radiotherapy (VALOR)
study — the largest clinical trial in the U.S. that
is comparing these two treatments.
The VALOR study is sponsored by the VA
Cooperative Studies program and enrolling 670
patients to study the effectiveness of radiation
therapy as an alternative to surgery for earlystage lung cancer.
Dr. Moghanaki and UCLA Health were early
supporters of the project, which has distributed
more than 1,000 white ribbons to date across
the U.S. and Canada, and as far away as
Germany, the Netherlands and the Philippines.
Radiation oncology research over the past 25
years has led to new approaches to treating
early-stage lung cancer, Dr. Moghanaki
says. Rather than providing daily low-dose
treatments over four to six weeks, patients with
early-stage disease now have the option to be
treated in just a few consecutive days with high
doses of targeted radiation therapy.
Scores of UCLA Health patients with lung
cancer, as well as physicians, have been
photographed with the white ribbon this year to
support the awareness-raising effort.
Treating lung cancer
Lung cancers aren't always caught early. For
many patients, their tumors have already
spread to the lymph nodes or other parts of
the body. Fortunately, even when lung cancer
is caught at a late stage, there is a lot more
hope than ever before. This is because today's
treatments have advanced significantly and
people are living high-quality lives for many
years.
“No one could have predicted how well
stereotactic radiation therapy would work,” Dr.
Moghanaki says. “Clinical trials have shown
that stereotactic radiotherapy is 95% to 97%
effective at controlling the cancer from ever
growing again in that area.”
The VALOR study compares this radiation
therapy to video-assisted or robotic-assisted
thoracic surgery in patients who have been
diagnosed with early-stage non-small cell
lung cancer that has not yet spread and would
otherwise be offered a standard surgical
resection for their tumor.
For patients with early-stage lung cancer, there
are now several promising treatments that offer
a chance for cure, Dr. Moghanaki says. One is
surgical resection and the other is radiation
therapy. Scientists are learning which of these
treatments is better for any given patient, he
says, although surgery is generally preferred by
most lung cancer specialists. This preference
is largely because of tradition, he says, since
radiation techniques weren’t sophisticated
enough to target the tumor with enough dose
until recently.
Dr. Moghanaki believes that the results of
the VALOR trial may show that stereotactic
radiation therapy is a better treatment than
state of the art thoracic surgery."
Dr. Moghanaki believes that the results of
the randomized VALOR trial may show that
stereotactic radiation therapy is a better
treatment than surgery. Yet, he states that we
To figure out when surgery or radiation therapy
might be a better option today for a patient
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