title: Pretreatment prognostic factors in patients with early-stage (I/II) non-small-cell lung cancer treated with hyperfractionated radiation therapy alone.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate influence of various pretreatment prognostic factors in patients with early stage (I/II) non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with hyperfractionated radiation therapy alone.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred and sixteen patients were treated with tumor doses of 69.6 Gy, 1.2-Gy, twice-daily fractionation. There were 49 patients with Stage I and 67 patients with Stage II. Eighty patients had Karnofsky performance status (KPS) 90-100 and 95 patients had <5% weight loss. Peripheral tumors were observed in 57 patients. Squamous histology was observed in 70 patients and the majority of patients had concomitant disease (n=72).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The median survival time for all patients was 29 months; 5-year survival was 29%. The median time to local progression and the distant metastasis were not achieved, whereas 5-year local progression-free and distant metastasis-free survivals were 50% and 72%, respectively. Multivariate analysis identified KPS, weight loss, location, histology, and the reason for not undergoing surgery as prognostic factors for survival. KPS, location, and histology influenced local progression-free survival, whereas only KPS and weight loss influenced distant metastasis-free survival.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This retrospective analysis identified KPS and weight loss as the most important prognostic factors of outcome in patients with early-stage NSCLC treated with hyperfractionation radiation therapy.
authors: Department of Oncology, University Hospital, Kragujevac, Serbia. b.jeremic@iaea.org
authors: Branislav
authors: B
authors: Jeremić
authors: Biljana
authors: B
authors: Milicić
authors: Aleksandar
authors: A
authors: Dagović
authors: Ljubisa
authors: L
authors: Acimović
authors: Slobodan
authors: S
authors: Milisavljević