TY - JOUR
T1 - The quality assurance programme of the Radiotherapy Group of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer
T2 - Past, present and future
AU - Poortmans, P. M.
AU - Davis, J. B.
AU - Ataman, F.
AU - Bernier, J.
AU - Horiot, J. C.
AU - Bartelink, Harry
AU - Garavaglia, Guido
AU - Giraud, Jean Yves
AU - Godson, Frances
AU - Johansson, Karl Axel
AU - Kouloulias, Vassilis
AU - Maingon, Philippe
AU - Pierart, Marianne
AU - van Dam, Jan
AU - van Tienhoven, Geertjan
AU - Van der Schueren, Emmanuel
N1 - Funding Information: The authors wish to thank the numerous colleagues who were actively or passively involved in the organisation and execution of quality assurance in the EORTC Radiotherapy Group, including but not limited to: Harry Bartelink, Guido Garavaglia, Jean-Yves Giraud, Frances Godson, Karl-Axel Johansson, Vassilis Kouloulias, Philippe Maingon, Marianne Pierart, Jan van Dam, Geertjan van Tienhoven and the late Emmanuel Van der Schueren. We also thank very warmly the Vlaamse Kankerliga for the ongoing financial support of the Emmanuel Van der Schueren fellowship (Dr Fatma Ataman) for Quality Assurance in radiotherapy and our colleagues from the ESTRO-EQUAL network and from the NCI-ATC consortium for the positive and fruitful collaboration. None of this would have been possible without the collaboration of the participating centres, to which we express a special note of gratitude. Funding Information: The Advance Technology Consortium (ATC) is funded by the NCI and consists of several existing partners, namely the Image-Guided Therapy QA Center (ITC), the Quality Assurance Review Center (QARC), the RTOG Radiological Physics Center (RPC) and the Resource Center for Emerging Technologies (RCET). The ATC is committed to using advanced medical informatics and aims at facilitating education, collaboration and peer review, providing an environment in which clinical investigators can receive, share and analyse treatment planning digital data, which can support clinical trial QA. The ATC also performs image and radiation therapy digital data management and is actively engaged in research and development in these areas. Its ultimate goal is to improve standards of care in management of cancer by improving the quality of clinical trial medicine. To achieve this, ATC focuses on electronic data exchange of treatment planning digital data between ATC QA centres and centres participating in clinical trials. Digital Image and Communication (DICOM) is used in all parts of the radiotherapy treatment planning including CT images, anatomical structure sets, radiotherapy plans, images (DRR, BEV etc.) and doses. Data of patients entered into clinical trials can be uploaded via the internet to a central server pending review by a QA group. This server could be in any centre, at the EORTC Data Centre, or at the ATC and is accessible to the study coordinators and QA group.
PY - 2005/8
Y1 - 2005/8
N2 - As early as in 1982, the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Radiotherapy Group established a quality assurance programme. In the course of 20 years, quality assurance procedures have become a vast and important part of the activities of the group. Today, the membership committee uses standard procedures based on minimal requirements to evaluate current members and new membership applications. Moreover, for every new trial, specific quality assurance procedures are an integral part of the preparation of the protocol and executed under the responsibility of the study coordinator. With the growing complexity of the radiotherapy techniques used in the framework of the more recent trials, quality assurance procedures have also become more complex including trial specific phantom based measurements. Future ways to evaluate all steps of the radiotherapy process using a common platform connecting all users with the internet are currently under development.
AB - As early as in 1982, the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Radiotherapy Group established a quality assurance programme. In the course of 20 years, quality assurance procedures have become a vast and important part of the activities of the group. Today, the membership committee uses standard procedures based on minimal requirements to evaluate current members and new membership applications. Moreover, for every new trial, specific quality assurance procedures are an integral part of the preparation of the protocol and executed under the responsibility of the study coordinator. With the growing complexity of the radiotherapy techniques used in the framework of the more recent trials, quality assurance procedures have also become more complex including trial specific phantom based measurements. Future ways to evaluate all steps of the radiotherapy process using a common platform connecting all users with the internet are currently under development.
KW - Clinical trials
KW - European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC)
KW - Quality assurance
KW - Radiotherapy
KW - Review
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=22144442118&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=22144442118&origin=inward
UR - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16100781
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejso.2005.02.014
DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejso.2005.02.014
M3 - Article
C2 - 16100781
SN - 0748-7983
VL - 31
SP - 667
EP - 674
JO - European Journal of Surgical Oncology
JF - European Journal of Surgical Oncology
IS - 6 SPEC. ISS.
ER -