Participating in CHHiP and its radiotherapy quality assurance program helped many centers to implement IMRT. Forty-one centers completed the CHHiP quality assurance exercises and recruited them to the trial. In seventy-one prospective patient case reviews out of a hundred, the clinical outlines required pre-treatment revision. The errors in treatment planning were reduced from 21% to 6%. The trial aimed to investigate whether the use of hypofractionation for the treatment of prostate cancer was feasible, using intensity-modulated radiotherapy. This article considers the outcome and effectiveness of the program. Quality control exercises involved prospective case reviews, a pre-trial process document, a dosimetry site visit on-trial and post-trial feedback questionnaire. Forty-one centers completed the quality assurance program between the years 2005 to 2010. Medical centers used either inverse or forward-planned IMRT. For the pre-trial quality assurance exercises:
- 17% of centers had minor deviations in their radiotherapy processes,
- 55% of benchmark plans had minor variations,
- and 21% had significant variations.
One hundred prospective case reviews were completed for 38 centers. Seventy-one percent required changes to clinical outlining pre-treatment. In treatment planning, the errors were reduced to pre-trial quality control results. Due to the results being satisfactory, the CHHiP program could contribute to the trial’s success by auditing radiotherapy treatment planning and compliance of the protocol.
Ref: https://www.clinicaloncologyonline.net/article/S0936-6555(19)30201-8/fulltext
