Purpose: To analyze treatment results of palliative HDR brachytherapy in patients with advanced lung cancer treated previously on another cancer. From May 1999 to May 2001 24 patients with diagnosis of lung cancer were treated with HDR brachytherapy in Greatpoland Cancer Center. All patients were treated for another cancer in the past. All patients became disqualified from surgical treatment and radical radiotherapy due to advance stage of diseases. High dose brachytherapy of 22.5 Gy counted in distances 1 cm from tube axis was used. Control group consisted of 56 lung cancer patients without past history of another malignancy treated with brachytherapy in the same period. Patients were observed during a period of 12 months in terms of local remission rates and survival time depends on chosen clinical factors. Median survival time in the first group of patients was 5.6 months and 8.9 months in the control group. Patients with the history of prior cancer lived shorter (log-rank test, p = 0.003). Significant correlation was observed between survival rate and remission rate achieved in 1th month after the end of treatment (log-rank test, p = 0.001).
Conclusions: 1. Past history of cancer decreases survival of patients with advanced lung cancer treated palliatively with HDR brachytherapy. 2. HDR brachytherapy of advanced lung cancer provides improvement of dyspnoea in most of patients. 3. The most important prognostic factor for survival was remission achieved within 1th month after the end of brachytherapy.