Palliative radiotherapy in patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer

Metastatic or stage IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is no longer regarded a uniform disease entity even if the general outlook is poor for the vast majority of patients facing this diagnosis. Disease extent is highly variable, and metastatic spread might either be present at initial cancer diagnosis or develop at some point in time after previous curative attempts for stage I-III disease.