Stereotactic Ablative Radiotherapy for the Treatment of Oligometastatic Cancer: A Clinical Review as Part of a Health Technology Assessment, Version 2.0

Key Messages

• Oligometastatic cancer (cancer with a limited number of metastases) represents an intermediate state between cancer confined to a single location in the body and cancer that has metastasized — or spread — widely.
• One treatment option, for which there is growing interest, is stereotactic ablative radiotherapy, also known as SABR.
  • SABR precisely delivers a high dose of radiation to ablate tumours at specific sites while minimizing the radiation dose to surrounding normal tissues.
  • SABR may be used independently or alongside other treatment options in the management of oligometastatic cancer.

• This CADTH clinical review evaluated the evidence regarding the clinical effectiveness and safety of SABR with or without standard of care (SOC) for people with oligometastatic cancer and found the following:
  • SABR in addition to SOC may offer a benefit in terms of overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS).
  • The findings for the effectiveness of SABR alone compared with SOC were mixed and deemed inconclusive.
  • There are insufficient data related to adverse events (AEs) at the present time to draw conclusions regarding the safety of SABR relative to SOC alternatives.

• This CADTH clinical review was maintained as a living systematic review for 1 year from January 2021 to January 2022. Updates were conducted every 3 months during that year to ensure the findings remained up-to-date as new evidence emerged. Please refer to the CADTH project page for all versions of the report and for the version history document, which outlines the results of each quarterly update.