Elsevier

Radiotherapy and Oncology

Volume 97, Issue 3, December 2010, Pages 593-595
Radiotherapy and Oncology

Quality assurance
Development of an electronic database for quality assurance of radiotherapy in the International Society of Paediatric Oncology (Europe) high risk neuroblastoma study

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.radonc.2010.08.017Get rights and content

Abstract

Quality assurance of radiotherapy is an important determinant of outcome in some cancers. SIOPEN-R-NET developed a computerised remote data entry system for recording imaging and treatment parameters for its multimodality high risk neuroblastoma study. This will enable investigation of the relationship between radiotherapy quality and local control.

Section snippets

SIOPEN-R-NET

The International Society of Paediatric Oncology (Europe) Neuroblastoma Research Network (SIOPEN-R-NET) is the European association for clinical research in neuroblastoma established with the initial support of a European Union 5th Framework grant. It now involves more than 200 clinics from more than 20 countries. It seeks in the current high risk trial to improve outcomes through intensification of therapy, including the addition of external beam radiotherapy as part of standard treatment. An

Radiotherapy database – treatment data and images

On entering the specialist radiotherapy section of the database for each patient, there is a direct link to the diagnostic imaging stored in the specialist radiology section. This is essential as target volume definition is dependent on diagnostic imaging; so to assess the accuracy of volume placement, it is necessary for the reviewers to look at the post-chemotherapy, pre-surgical cross sectional imaging.

The first eCRF in the radiotherapy database lists the types of images which will be used

Discussion

It has been demonstrated that it is feasible to establish a web-based electronic database for remote entry of radiology and radiotherapy images and data. Once uploaded, data can be viewed and analysed by a number of authorised individuals from any location for quality assurance. In practice the image quality is quite sufficient to judge field location and dose distribution in comparison with diagnostic imaging. The system is generally easy to use regarding DICOM and PDF file formats, but its

Conflict of interest statement

None declared.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a European Community Framework 5 Grant No. QLRI-CT-2002-01768 and the Austrian National Bank. Part of this work was undertaken at UCLH/UCL who received a proportion of funding from the Department of Health’s NIHR Biomedical Research Centres funding scheme. Dr. Mark Gaze is supported by the UCLH Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre.

We would like to thank Bela Malinova, Knut Lote, Lorenza Gandola, Dolores Badal, Anna-Lena Hjelm-Skog and Paola Ampereira for their

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