Lung Cancer Patients' Attitudes to a Second Course of Radiotherapy

Patients with lung cancer are often treated with high dose x-ray treatment (radical radiotherapy) to control the disease. After one course of radiotherapy, after a period of time, there is a risk that the cancer can come back in either the same place or nearby in the lungs. This happens to about 700 patients in the UK every year. There is no strong evidence to suggest what the best treatment is in this situation. One possible treatment is a second course of radiotherapy (re-irradiation). Early studies show that a re-irradiation may cause significant side effects like breathlessness or problems swallowing, but may control the cancer for a long period of time. We want to do a clinical trial to investigate if re-irradiation improves cancer control compared to other treatments to help guide treatment for patients with recurrent disease. Before we can go ahead with the trial, we would like to talk to patients who are have completed radiotherapy to find out what are their feelings about having a second course of radiotherapy if needed, and how the side effects from the initial course of radiotherapy or the projected side-effects from the second course would affect that decision. This information is vitally important to help develop a trial about re-irradiation in lung cancer as it will demonstrate if patients would accept a second course of radiotherapy, and, by accounting for patient concerns in the trial design, will make it more likely to recruit well. This study will perform telephone interviews with patients five weeks after completing a course of radical radiotherapy for lung cancer at the Beatson Cancer Centre. We expect to interview 16-30 patients. This study will run over the course of 1 year. This research is funded by the Beatson Cancer Charity and The University of Glasgow.

Sex

All

Minimum age

18 Years

Inclusion Criteria:

* Age 18 years old or above
* Pathological or radiological diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer
* Undergoing radical radiotherapy to the thorax using the following fractionations (55 Gray in 20 fractions, 54 Gray in 36 fractions or any Stereotactic Ablative Body Radiotherapy (SABR) fractionation that delivers a biological effective dose of greater than 100Gy10) as part of their primary lung cancer treatment at time of study enrolment
* Patients receiving concurrent and/or adjuvant systemic therapies are permitted
* Radiotherapy is delivered in the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre
* Signed, written informed consent
* Willing and able to complete study processes

Exclusion Criteria:

* Not fluent in English