Quality assurance control in the EORTC cooperative group of radiotherapy

A Quality Assurance Network in Central European Countries: Radiotherapy Infrastructure

“…Excluding these 3 centres, a mean value of 498 patients (SD =286) treated per year per physicist is found. This number is close to the numbers observed in the EORTC study (17) of 482 patients (SD =285). However, there is at present no good description of their functions and responsibilities.…”

“…The average number of patients treated per year per full-time radiation oncologist (average 275, SD = 241, range 67-1356) in the Central European countries is similar to the number in West European countries (average 328, SD =147, range 130-770) (17), but the much larger standard deviation and spread indicate that large differences between centres are observed. In 64% of Central European centres the radiation oncologist treats less than 250 patients per year and in more than 21% of centres he has to take care of more than 400 patients per year, with two centres exceeding more than 1000 patients (see Fig.…”

“…In addition, the radiotherapy community is aware of the fact that, during the past few years, serious radiological accidents (5)(6)(7)(8) have been reported which could have been avoided, had a comprehensive QA programme been applied (9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15). The need for a quality assurance programme in radiotherapy has been widely demonstrated (13,16,17).…”

“…Large centres in Western Europe have developed quality assurance programmes for their own institutions, sometimes through radiotherapy clinical research groups (17,18). The great progress made in a few centres led to an improvement for the relatively small number of patients who can benefit from the most sophisticated techniques.…”

Resources and Productivity in Radiation Oncology in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden During 1987

“…Individual centres in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden had patient loads of about 450 patients per LAE in 1987. Generally, the patient load per LAE unit during 1987 was not excessive in the five Nordic countries compared to an average load of 501 patients per megavoltage equipment per year reported in a survey of 17 European centres (25), although fairly high compared to the US standard of 230 patients per machine per year (26).…”