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QuickStart radiotherapy: an inter-professional approach to expedite radiotherapy treatment in early breast cancer

QuickStart radiotherapy: an inter-professional approach to expedite radiotherapy treatment in... AbstractBackground and purposeThis study aims to develop an expedited radiotherapy (RT) process and evaluate its time savings in women requiring whole breast RT.Material and methodsAn inter-professional RT team streamlined the computed tomography (CT) simulation and treatment pathway for a ‘QuickStart’ process. Target delineation was performed by an advanced practice radiation therapist and approved by the radiation oncologist (RO) for planning. Automated breast planning software was used for treatment planning and standard quality checks were performed. To assess time savings, the initial 25 QuickStart patients were matched with women who underwent whole breast simulation on the same day (±3 days), treated using the conventional process.ResultsA total of 73 post-lumpectomy women were treated through the QuickStart process; the median consent-to-RT was 2 days (range: 0–13) and the mean CT simulation-to-RT treatment was 2 hours and 42 minutes (SD 0:30). In the subgroup analysis, QuickStart patients saved an average of 11 days from CT simulation-to-RT and had shorter median wait-times for both surgery/chemotherapy-to-RT (60 versus 38 days; p=0·002) and consultation-to-RT (7 versus 20 days; p<0·001).ConclusionsThrough inter-professional team efforts and the application of automated planning software, we have achieved a process that significantly decreases patient wait-times while maintaining the quality of whole breast RT. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Radiotherapy in Practice Cambridge University Press

QuickStart radiotherapy: an inter-professional approach to expedite radiotherapy treatment in early breast cancer

Journal of Radiotherapy in Practice , Volume 14 (3): 8 – May 20, 2015
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Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2015 
ISSN
1467-1131
eISSN
1460-3969
DOI
10.1017/S1460396915000205
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

AbstractBackground and purposeThis study aims to develop an expedited radiotherapy (RT) process and evaluate its time savings in women requiring whole breast RT.Material and methodsAn inter-professional RT team streamlined the computed tomography (CT) simulation and treatment pathway for a ‘QuickStart’ process. Target delineation was performed by an advanced practice radiation therapist and approved by the radiation oncologist (RO) for planning. Automated breast planning software was used for treatment planning and standard quality checks were performed. To assess time savings, the initial 25 QuickStart patients were matched with women who underwent whole breast simulation on the same day (±3 days), treated using the conventional process.ResultsA total of 73 post-lumpectomy women were treated through the QuickStart process; the median consent-to-RT was 2 days (range: 0–13) and the mean CT simulation-to-RT treatment was 2 hours and 42 minutes (SD 0:30). In the subgroup analysis, QuickStart patients saved an average of 11 days from CT simulation-to-RT and had shorter median wait-times for both surgery/chemotherapy-to-RT (60 versus 38 days; p=0·002) and consultation-to-RT (7 versus 20 days; p<0·001).ConclusionsThrough inter-professional team efforts and the application of automated planning software, we have achieved a process that significantly decreases patient wait-times while maintaining the quality of whole breast RT.

Journal

Journal of Radiotherapy in Practice – Cambridge University Press

Published: May 20, 2015

Keywords: advanced practice; automated planning; breast cancer; radiotherapy; treatment process; wait-times

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