Defining the roles of high dose rate endobronchial brachytherapy and laser resection for recurrent bronchial malignancy.

Endobronchial therapy is commonly used in the palliative management of malignant disease, but the optimal combinations of treatment modalities (laser, brachytherapy, external beam radiotherapy) have not been defined. We have undertaken a prospective analysis of symptom response, duration of response, and prognostic factors for 117 patients treated with brachytherapy at a single centre, to identify hypotheses suitable for prospective randomised studies. All but one patient had received previous treatment. The percentage of patients with scores of 0 or 1 (none or mild) for each symptom pre-treatment and at 3 months were as follows: cough 62% to 77% (43% improving by at least one grade, N.S.); dyspnoea 32% to 56% (50% improvement by at least one grade, P = 0.0063); haemoptysis 78% to 97%; performance status 65% to 84% (54% by at least one grade, P = 0.0417). An actuarial risk of fatal haemoptysis at 2 years of 20% was associated with prior laser resection (P = 0.048). Death before 2 months was associated with dyspnoea scores of 3 or 4. Suggestions for randomised studies are made to address some of the uncertainties revealed by the analysis.