Improving Research in Radiation Oncology through Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Abstract

The contribution of radiation oncology to the future of cancer treatment depends significantly on our continued clinical progress and future research advancements. Such progress relies on multidisciplinary collaboration among radiation oncologists, medical physicists and radiobiologists. Cultivating collaborative educational and research opportunities among these three disciplines and further investing in the infrastructure used to train both clinicians and researchers will therefore help us improve the future of cancer care. This article evaluates the success of a short-term educational environment to foster multidisciplinary collaboration. The NIH-funded educational course developed at Wayne State University, called “Integration of Biology and Physics into Radiation Oncology’’ (IBPRO), was designed to facilitate the engagement of radiation oncologists, medical physicists and radiobiologists in activities that enhance collaborative investigation. Having now been delivered to nearly 200 participants over the past four years, the relative success of IBPRO in fostering productive interdisciplinary collaboration and producing tangible research outcomes can be evaluated. The 140 IBPRO participants from the first three years were surveyed to quantify the effectiveness of the course. In total, 62 respondents reported developing 23 institutional protocols, submitting more than 25 research grants (nine of which have been funded thus far), and publishing more than 30 research manuscripts attributable to participation in IBPRO. Nearly one-half (45%) of respondents reported generating at least one of these research metrics attributable to participation in IBPRO and these participants reported an average of over four such quantitative research metrics per respondent. This represents a very substantial contribution to radiation oncology research by a relatively small number of researchers within a relatively short time. Nearly one-half of respondents reported ongoing collaborative working relationships generated by IBPRO. In addition, approximately one-half of respondents stated that specific information presented at IBPRO changed the way they practice, and over 80% of respondents practicing in a clinical setting stated that, since participation in IBPRO, they have approached clinical dilemmas more collaboratively. We believe that educational opportunities such as IBPRO can have a significant impact on interdisciplinary collaborative research. In addition, such interventions have the ability to effect significant clinical change. Both of these should have a positive impact on future advancements in radiation oncology and affect the future contribution of radiation oncology to the treatment of cancer.

Grand challenges for medical physics in radiation oncology

“…New visionary roads are needed to optimally address the grand challenges of our times and of the coming future. A common message, largely present in all four challenges, is that the field of medical physics should accelerate toward multidisciplinarity [3,4,[69][70][71], with different problems and unexplored fields to be explored. This is connected with the intrinsic translational nature of medical physics but also contains something new, mostly linked to the rapid evolution toward personalized medicine, stressing the growing need of hybridization.…”

As part of Maintenance of Certification (MOC), all clinical medical physicists should be expected to periodically demonstrate some clinical research in the form of meeting presentations and published articles

“…They also bring diversity to the research pool and we all know diversity is what fuels progress and advancement. By mandating research as part of MOC will additionally encourage physicists to seek more collaboration with other centers which will result in positive outcomes 7 …”

“…By mandating research as part of MOC will additionally encourage physicists to seek more collaboration with other centers which will result in positive outcomes. 7 It is often argued that the lack of protected research time and not enough staff is a hindrance for clinical medical physicists to do research. [8][9][10] However, if research, presentations and publications are required for MOC, employers will be more willing to provide time and resources to do research.…”

Three Discipline Collaborative Radiation Therapy (3DCRT) special debate: In the future, at least 20% of NIH funding for radiotherapy research should be allocated to non‐oncologic applications

“…As a result, discussion of controversies or changes in practice within radiation oncology involves input from all three disciplines. For this reason, significant effort has been expended recently to foster collaborative multidisciplinary research in radiation oncology, with substantial demonstrated benefit . In light of these results, we endeavor here to adopt this “team‐science” approach to the traditional debates featured in this journal.…”