Many members of UW Radiology strive to make a difference in cancer care. Recently, Dr. Michael Brunner’s work focused on comparing lung cancer treatments, and Dr. Brunner was a contributing author to the lead article published on the subject in the January issue of the Journal of Vascular Interventional Radiology (JVIR).
The publication, titled, “Thermal ablation matches sublobar resection outcomes in older patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer,” compares a percutaneous technique and an open surgical technique in clinical outcomes for treatment of early lung cancer in an elderly patient population.
Overall, only 15% of people in the United States diagnosed with lung cancer survive just five years after diagnosis, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians, so testing the efficiency of treatment options is a key area for researchers.
“[Our study] is very significant in that it suggests, with claims data, equivalency between [the] percutaneous and surgical techniques,” Dr. Brunner said. “This finding of equivalency is rather unusual in image-guided treatment options for cancer.”
With lung cancer as the leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. according to the Centers for Disease Control, further verification of the findings with randomized controlled studies are of critical importance, Dr. Brunner noted.