Quality assurance in radiation oncology

Abstract

The Children's Oncology Group (COG) has a strong quality assurance (QA) program managed by the Imaging and Radiation Oncology Core (IROC). This program consists of credentialing centers and providing real‐time management of each case for protocol compliant target definition and radiation delivery. In the International Society of Pediatric Oncology (SIOP), the lack of an available, reliable online data platform has been a challenge and the European Society for Paediatric Oncology (SIOPE) quality and excellence in radiotherapy and imaging for children and adolescents with cancer across Europe in clinical trials (QUARTET) program currently provides QA review for prospective clinical trials. The COG and SIOP are fully committed to a QA program that ensures uniform execution of protocol treatments and provides validity of the clinical data used for analysis.

Pediatric radiotherapy for thoracic and abdominal targets: Organ motion, reported margin sizes, and delineation variations – A systematic review

“…The need for more standardized margins and target and OAR delineation is also reflected by the increase of radiotherapy quality assurance within pediatric trial networks. QUARTET (Quality and Excellence in Radiotherapy and Imaging for Children and Adolescents with Cancer across Europe in Clinical Trials) is the platform for many pan-European pediatric trials with extensive peer review processes [141]. This will hopefully result in a more standardized data collection for future analysis of this topic.…”

“…Ó 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Radiotherapy and Oncology 173 (2022) [134][135][136][137][138][139][140][141][142][143][144][145] This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).…”

Pediatric Non-Rhabdomyosarcoma Soft Tissue Sarcomas: Standard of Care and Treatment Recommendations from the European Paediatric Soft Tissue Sarcoma Study Group (EpSSG)

“…In principle, radiotherapy has a role in local control after incomplete resections and even after wide excisions in the case of large tumors. [40][41][42][43] The indications for radiotherapy are usually more limited in children, however, because of the higher risk of severe late effects. The aggressiveness and intensity of surgery and radiotherapy should be discussed and customized for each patient, based on anatomical site, tumor size, patient's age, and response to initial chemotherapy.…”

Editorial: Rising stars in radiation oncology 2022

“…Great departments become outstanding when protocols based in translational science are developed and outcomes are published for others to review. This promotes progress and provides recognition to the group for their efforts in using science to improve patient care ( 2 , 3 ). Li et al.…”

“…Great departments become outstanding when protocols based in translational science are developed and outcomes are published for others to review. This promotes progress and provides recognition to the group for their efforts in using science to improve patient care (2,3). Li et al evaluated potential imaging biomarkers based on 18 F-AlF-NOTA-PRGD2 positron emission tomography/computed tomography and dynamic contrastenhanced magnetic resonance imaging and response to bevacizumab, conventional concurrent radiotherapy, and temozolomide in patients with glioblastoma.…”