BTOG 2026 | Updates in the TOURIST Platform Study of palliative radiotherapy in lung cancer

So this is a trial of palliative radiotherapy in stage four lung cancer. It’s a platform study. So the ultimate aim is that any patient requiring palliative radiotherapy for their lung cancer hopefully has a trial treatment option. So at the moment we’ve got two trials open. One is PRINCE and the other is QUARTZ LUNG. And the background really is that it’s 20, 30, 40 years ago since the studies of palliative radiotherapy in lung cancer were performed. So we’ve got a fairly dated evidence base. What that evidence base tells us is that radiotherapy can be very effective in controlling symptoms. There were some small improvements in duration, survival times. But this was all before the advent of systemic treatment. The patients who were on those studies, none of them really had systemic treatment. So clearly things have moved on. We now use chemotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted agents. So a question is where does radiotherapy fit into the new paradigm? So that’s really what we’re trying to answer. There are two trials open at the moment. One is PRINCE, and that’s looking at giving radiotherapy early for patients who are fit and able to get systemic treatment. So essentially combining systemic treatment with the radiotherapy in the first couple of months of their treatment as opposed to having the radiotherapy up your sleeve should they relapse at a later date. The other trial, Quartz Lung, is very much focused on those patients who aren’t fit for systemic treatment and looking at the role of radiotherapy in their management. So immediate radiotherapy against deferring it until there is more symptomatic development.

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