Thoracic radiotherapy for mediastinal nodal recurrence.

Radiotherapy has been used to treat loco-regional recurrences located at various intra-thoracic sites, but long-term survival of these patients has been rarely observed. We report herein a lung adenocarcinoma patient with locoregional recurrence, who was successfully treated with high-dose radiotherapy. The patient could survive with no evidence of recurrence 5 years after thoracic irradiation. It is probably safe to administrate high-dose radiotherapy for some loco-regional recurrent patients with favorable prognostic factors such as good PS, no body weight loss. Further studies will be required to define a favorable subset of patients most likely to benefit from an aggressive approach.