BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- A new treatment may significantly increase the life expectancy of lung cancer patients.

Doctors have studied a nonsurgical cancer treatment in which a number of small and highly focused radiation beams deliver potent doses. Each tumor is targeted one to five times.

The success rate offers hope for patients with inoperable non-small-cell lung cancer. In the study, 55 patients received the new radiation beam procedure.

Only one patient had a recurrence of the primary tumor, meaning that the primary lung tumor was controlled in nearly 98 percent of patients three years after the therapy started.

Overall, more than half were still living after three years. The overall survival rate in these patients was 56 percent after three years. Additionally, there were fewer side-effects with the new radiation beam therapy.