Research Overview: Cardiac Comorbidity and Radiation-Induced Lung Toxicity (RILT)

Research led by Georgi Nalbantov PhD, Head of Data Science @ VectorLabs.AI, to examine the impact of pre-existing cardiac conditions on radiation-induced lung toxicity (RILT) after high-dose radio(chemo)therapy for lung cancer.

Overview:

• Traditionally, radiation effect on the heart and lungs were studied separately
• Recent studies reveal a short-term interaction between heart irradiation and lung dysfunction
• This study bridges the gap by investigating how cardiac issues affect RILT in the short term 

Observations:

• 28.9% of patients had cardiac comorbidity before radiotherapy
• 44% of patients had cardiac comorbidity before radiotherapy
• Patients with cardiac comorbidity had 2.58 times higher odds of developing RILT

Predictive model for RILT:

• A model was built which helps identify patients at higher risk of RILT
• This model incorporates cardiac comorbidity, tumour location, lung function, chemotherapy, and pretreatment dyspnea score
• The model demonstrated an Area Under the Curve (AUC) of 0.72 in the training set and 0.67 in the validation set, signifying its predictive performance

Key implications:

• Cardiac comorbidity contributes significantly to RILT cases
• Tailored treatment approaches are essential for patients with cardiac comorbidity
• Excluding these patients from dose escalation studies may optimize outcomes

Read more in the full paper here.