Focused radiation, longer lives: when lung cancer reaches the brain, aim matters

When small-cell lung cancer spreads to the brain, doctors have long treated the whole brain to catch tumours too small to see. A randomised trial of 151 patients, shared at the American Society for Radiation Oncology's 2026 meeting, compared that approach with focused radiation aimed only at visible tumours. Patients on the focused treatment lived a median of 17.4 months, against 8.6 months with whole-brain treatment — a striking gap, even though the trial's main question, protecting memory and thinking, showed no significant difference between the two.