American Society for Radiation Oncology Announces Patient Protection Plan

February 7, 2010

The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) announced a six-point patient protection on February 3, 2010. The plan was described as the culmination of a long-term effort to assure that patients receive safe and effective radiation therapy, an effort that continued at the ASTRO Board of Directors winter meeting on January 28-31, 2010.

The ASTRO plan includes the following recommendations: 1) creating a database for the reporting of linear accelerator- and computed tomography-based medical errors, 2) launching an enhanced practice accreditation program, specifically addressing new, advanced technologies such as IMRT, SBRT, and brachytherapy, 3) expanding educational programs, with special emphasis on quality assurance and safety, 4) working with patient support organizations to develop tools for patients to use in discussions with radiation oncologists, 5) developing a compliance program to ensure that technologies from different manufacturers can safetly transfer information to reduce the chance of a medical error, and 6) providing members’ expertise to policymakers for expanded federal initiatives to help protect patients.

The ASTRO press release describing the six-point patient protection plan is available at http://www.astro.org/PressRoom/NewsReleases/2010NewsReleases/documents/RadiationSafetyPR.pdf.

The release of the plan follows the publication of a series on radiation therapy safety in the New York Times. Two articles on this topic by Walt Bogdanich are available at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/health/24radiation.html and http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/us/27radiation.html.

The Times also editorialized about the safety of radiation therapy after the two investigative articles published in the paper. The editorial recommended, ” Manufacturers need to develop software that will shut down the linear accelerators before they can deliver extreme amounts of radiation. Medical teams that deliver the radiation must be far better trained than many now are. Surely it should be standard procedure to run a test before the first treatment to be sure the computer is programmed correctly. Once the manage is done to a patient, there is little that can be done to correct it. The Times editorial is available at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/opinion/27wed3.html.

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