Medical physics aspects of cancer care in the Asia Pacific region

Abstract

Medical physics plays an essential role in modern medicine. This is particularly evident in cancer care where medical physicists are involved in radiotherapy treatment planning and quality assurance as well as in imaging and radiation protection. Due to the large variety of tasks and interests, medical physics is often subdivided into specialties such as radiology, nuclear medicine and radiation oncology medical physics. However, even within their specialty, the role of radiation oncology medical physicists (ROMPs) is diverse and varies between different societies. Therefore, a questionnaire was sent to leading medical physicists in most countries/areas in the Asia/Pacific region to determine the education, role and status of medical physicists.Answers were received from 17 countries/areas representing nearly 2800 radiation oncology medical physicists. There was general agreement that medical physicists should have both academic (typically at MSc level) and clinical (typically at least 2 years) training. ROMPs spent most of their time working in radiotherapy treatment planning (average 17 hours per week); however radiation protection and engineering tasks were also common. Typically, only physicists in large centres are involved in research and teaching. Most respondents thought that the workload of physicists was high, with more than 500 patients per year per physicist, less than one ROMP per two oncologists being the norm, and on average, one megavoltage treatment unit per medical physicist.There was also a clear indication of increased complexity of technology in the region with many countries/areas reporting to have installed helical tomotherapy, IMRT (Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy), IGRT (Image Guided Radiation Therapy), Gamma-knife and Cyber-knife units. This and the continued workload from brachytherapy will require growing expertise and numbers in the medical physics workforce. Addressing these needs will be an important challenge for the future.

Medical physics aspects of cancer care in the Asia Pacific region: 2014 survey results

“…This constitutes a response rate of 100% compared to 80% in 2008 [2]. Tables 1 to 5 show the results.…”

“…Tables 1 to 5 show the results. The numbering and structure of the tables is identical to that used in the original publication [2] to facilitate easy comparisons. Two tables (2 'staff numbers and equipment' and 3 'workload') were split into two tables each to make access to the data easier.…”

“…Based on the 2008 survey [2], a questionnaire was designed to explore medical physics practice in radiation oncology. The 2008 survey relied on an ad-hoc group of medical physicists in 16 countries to provide information on the situation in these countries.…”

“…In 2008, a survey was conducted to determine the characteristics of the medical physics workforce in countries within the region of the Asia-Oceania Federation of Organizations for Medical Physics (AFOMP) [2]. It probed workforce numbers and typical workloads, training and education, and job satisfaction among medical physicists working in radiation oncology in 16 countries in the Asia Pacific region.…”

Medical Physics in Asia — Where are we going?

“…The ratio of megavoltage machines per million population varies from a high of 7.0 (Japan) to the low end of 0.13 (Indonesia) 5 The GDP per capita differs by up to 50 times, ranging from USD49900 (Singapore) to USD1000 (Nepal) 6 .…”