Role of Real-World Data in Assessing Cardiac Toxicity After Lung Cancer Radiotherapy

Radiation-induced heart disease (RIHD) is a recent concern in patients with lung cancer after being treated with radiotherapy. Most of information we have in the field of cardiac toxicity comes from studies utilizing real-world data (RWD) as randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are generally not practical in this field. This article is a narrative review of the literature using RWD to study RIHD in patients with lung cancer following radiotherapy, summarizing heart dosimetric factors associated with outcome, strength, and limitations of the RWD studies, and how RWD can be used to assess a change to cardiac dose constraints.

Automated summary

This article is a narrative review of the literature using real-world data to study radiation-induced heart disease in lung cancer patients after radiotherapy. It summarizes the heart dosimetric factors associated with outcome, the strengths and limitations of real-world data studies, and how real-world data can be used to assess changes to cardiac dose constraints.