Application of stereotactic body radiation therapy to cancer liver metastasis

• SBRT could deliver a high dose in few fractions for partial liver radiotherapy.
• A patient with cancer liver metastasis gets an acceptable local control and overall survival after different prescriptions of SBRT.
• Rare severe toxicities are observed for liver metastasis SBRT.
• More evidences are needed for standard prescriptions of irradiation dose and fractions of SBRT for cancer liver metastasis.

As an accurate external beam irradiation method, stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) has been increasingly used to deliver high dose in less fractions. The liver is one of the most common organs for cancer metastasis. Recently, there have been several trials applying SBRT to cancer liver metastasis and have proved to be effective and safe with local control (LC) rates ranging from 70% to 100% within one or two years and 2-year overall survival (OS) rates ranging from 30% to 38%. Many published studies indicate that SBRT for cancer liver metastasis results in good outcomes without severe toxicities. However, the validated contribution of SBRT to an improved progression-free survival is still missing and more randomized trials should be conducted.