RTQA

From referral to treatment, the patient pathway is fraught with sources of variation. Radiation Therapy Quality Assurance (RTQA) procedures at EORTC are structured to cover these sources as widely as possible and are tailored to suit each trial’s needs to achieve quality efficiently. The EORTC headquarters team in charge of Radiotherapy Quality Assurance is involved at all steps of the study life cycle. Its goal is to harmonise treatment techniques across centres involved in a study, and improve compliance with study protocol.

RTQA involvement in Study Dev and Life cycle

In addition, the team works with other professional bodies to help harmonise and improve the quality assurance of radiation therapy used worldwide in treating cancer.

RTQA procedures

Facility Questionnaire and Beam Output Audit – This procedure covers sources of variation at infrastructural and personnel levels and must be completed by all sites entering patients in studies where radiotherapy is part of the protocol treatment. It consists of filling in an online questionnaire and providing a recent external dosimetry audit report.

Benchmark Case (Dummy Run with delineation exercise) – This procedure covers sources of variation in delineation and planning. It ensures that the specific delineation and dose guidelines for a given trial are properly understood by local investigators. It consists of delineation and planning of a test patient according to study protocol.

Individual Case Review (ICR) – During the course of a trial some or all of the patients’ RT datasets will be requested for a prospective or retrospective review by a panel of experts. This procedure will cover sources of variation on a single case level.

Complex Dosimetry Check (CDC) – This procedure validates whether modern radiotherapy techniques such as IMRT, VMAT and Tomotherapy are being used correctly. It consists of providing a raw dataset and final report for a recent patient QA.

More information can be requested directly from the RTQA team.