Local Therapy in Stage IV Lung Cancer with Oligopersistent or Oligoprogessive Disease

Abstract

Oligopersistent and oligoprogressive disease are defined as distinct situations of metastastatic lung cancer. Oligopersistence describes a situation in which a limited number of metastases remain following effective systemic therapy. Oligoprogression represents a largely controlled tumour disease with a few metastases showing significant progression. In the oligopersistence, treatment aims to establish complete tumour control with subsequent improvement of the prognosis by means of additional local ablative treatment of all remaining lesions. In the oligoprogressive situation, local ablative treatment aims to reestablish complete tumour control while continuing systemic therapy. The concepts are based on ideas that were introduced in oncology more than 30 years ago by Hellman and Weichselbaum by using the term oligometastases. Multimodal therapy concepts have gained importance in the situation of oligopersistence and oligoprogression, particularly due to molecular targeted therapies for oncogene-driven lung cancer and chemo-immunotherapy regimes with high response rates and long response duration. The available evidence will be presented and explained by case studies.