In recent years, the concept of oligometastases has become accepted and reports on
stereotactic body radiotherapy as a treatment method have been published. Lesions in the
brain, lung, and liver have been reported as target lesions. However, lymph node
oligometastases could be a good candidate for stereotactic body radiotherapy as well. In
this study, the usability of stereotactic body radiotherapy for oligometastases to lymph
nodes is assessed by researching for each primary site. As a result, we could consider
that stereotactic body radiotherapy could be almost well applied for lymph node
oligometastases from the breast, gynecological organs, and prostate. However, doubts
remain concerning the usefulness of stereotactic body radiotherapy for cervical node
metastases from head and neck cancer or for mediastinal node metastases from lung or
esophageal cancer since late toxicities have occurred with a large radiation dose at
hypofractionation to major vessels or the central respiratory tract, especially in
patients with irradiation histories. In addition, high-dose irradiation is required to
control lymph node metastases from colorectal cancer due to its radioresistance, and
severe late adverse events would therefore occur in adjacent organs such as the
gastrointestinal tract. In cases of lymph node oligometastases with a primary tumor in the
stomach or esophagus, stereotactic body radiotherapy should be used limitedly at present
because this patient population is not so large and these metastases are often located
close to organs at risk. Because of the varied status of recurrence and varied conditions
of patients, it is difficult to determine the optimal dose for tumor control. It might be
reasonable to determine the treatment dose individually based on dose constraints of
adjacent organs. The oligometastatic state is becoming more frequently identified with
more sensitive methods of detecting such oligometastases. In addition, there seems to be
another type of oligometastases, so-called induced oligometastases, following successful
systemic treatment. To determine the optimal indication of stereotactic body radiotherapy
for lymph node oligometastases, further investigation about the mechanisms of
oligometastases and further clinical studies including a phase III study are needed.