State of the art of radiotherapy

Locally advanced or stage III disease accounts for ∼30% of patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which means only in the United States, more than 50,000 new patients each year. Stage III is a very heterogeneous disease, the management of patients is complex and several conditions (performance status, weight loss, comorbidities, characteristics of nodal involvement or resectability) must be considered before selecting the best treatment, which in most cases is chemotherapy (CT) and radiotherapy (RT). In this article, we will review key changes in the management of unresectable stage III during the last decades. Also we will highlight some challenges and areas of active research.