Dear Radiation Oncology Insider,
Radiation therapy facilities are always looking for ways to reduce treatment errors and incidents. Canadian researchers believe they could improve the process through a new incident reporting taxonomy they've created.
The taxonomy is basically a common language for classifying radiation therapy incidents. It addresses a familiar problem in radiation oncology, in that treatment centers often use different terms for describing incidents. This can make incident reporting across different sites more difficult.
The researchers tested the taxonomy between two sites that used it to classify a set of sample treatment incidents. After some tweaks to the model, they were able to produce good agreement between the two radiation therapists who tested it.
The researchers hope the taxonomy could eventually be used at radiation therapy sites across Canada. Find out how it works in this edition's Insider Exclusive, available to you before our other AuntMinnie.com members.
In other news in the community, a brouhaha erupted in late October between radiation oncologists and urologists over intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) treatments for men with prostate cancer. The dispute was prompted by a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, in which urologists who operated their own IMRT equipment had higher utilization rates than those who didn't.
The article produced an immediate response from a society representing urologists, which disputed the study's findings and also pointed out that the research was commissioned and funded by the American Society for Radiation Oncology. Read more about the debate by clicking here.
Also be sure to read our stories on the following topics:
- The increasing use of PET/MRI instead of PET/CT for oncology applications
- The American Association for Cancer Research's report on progress made against the disease in the past year
- The finding that many women don't know their own breast cancer risk, from a study presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's Breast Cancer Symposium
We hope you find these articles useful. Remember to check back in with the Radiation Oncology Digital Community for more important news in the world of radiation therapy.
