Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Jan;6(4):344-9.
doi: 10.5114/jcb.2014.46610. Epub 2014 Nov 12.

Prostate brachytherapy in New South Wales: patterns of care study and impact of caseload on treatment quality

Stephen R Thompson  1 , Geoff P Delaney  2 , Gabriel S Gabriel  3 , Michael A Izard  4 , George Hruby  5 , Raj Jagavkar  6 , Joseph Bucci  7 , Michael B Barton  3
Affiliations

Prostate brachytherapy in New South Wales: patterns of care study and impact of caseload on treatment quality

Stephen R Thompson et al. J Contemp Brachytherapy. 2015 Jan.

Abstract

Purpose: We performed the first comprehensive, population-based brachytherapy (BT) Patterns of Care Study in the Australian setting. Herein we report on prostate BT and assess the technical quality of BT practice, focusing on whether a caseload effect could be identified in New South Wales (NSW).

Material and methods: Site visits were made to all radiation oncology departments in NSW that delivered prostate BT, collecting relevant data on NSW residents treated with prostate BT in 2003. Overall quality of NSW prostate BT treatment was assessed using benchmarks including treatment of appropriate prostate cancer disease risk category, absence of (relative) physical contraindications, optimal planned and treated dosimetry, and pre-/post-implant planning/CT. Quality was compared between higher and lower caseload departments.

Results: One hundred and fifty-seven (67%) patients underwent temporary BT and 79 (33%) permanent seed BT. Prostate BT was concentrated in five departments, with three of four departments with active programmes treating greater than the recommended 25 cases. Rates of concordance with quality benchmarks were high (85-99%) with no consistent caseload effect identified.

Conclusions: Prostate BT in NSW in 2003 was generally of high quality and a caseload effect on quality could not be identified. This may be because the number of departments was insufficient to determine a caseload effect, or because the prostate BT was largely concentrated in a small number of high caseload departments.

Keywords: brachytherapy; caseload; patterns of care study; prostate cancer; quality; radiotherapy.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Permanent seed brachytherapy. Prescribed and received dose parameters. Column graph indicates mean and whiskers indicate range, y-axis reprepresents Gray for D90 and % for V200/150/100
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Temporary brachytherapy. Dose parameters. Horizontal line – median value, vertical box – 25th-75th percentiles, vertical line – range. The y-axis represents Gray for D90 (Gy), % of prescribed dose for D90 (% prescribed) and % of prostate volume for V200/150/100
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Thompson S, Delaney G, Gabriel G, et al. NSW brachytherapy patterns of care study: Impact of caseload on treatment quality. J Med Imag Radiat Oncol. 2010;54:A82.
    1. Coia L, Hanks G. Quality Assessment in the USA: How the Patterns of Care Study Has Made a Difference. Semin Radiat Oncol. 1997;7:146–156. - PubMed
    1. Thompson SR, Barton M. Optimal utilization of permanent seed brachytherapy for the treatment of prostate cancer; 2009. Submitted to NSW Department of Health. Ref Type: Report.
    1. Ash D, Flynn A, Battermann J, et al. ESTRO/EAU/EORTC recommendations on permanent seed implantation for localized prostate cancer. Radiother Oncol. 2000;57:315–321. - PubMed
    1. Nag S, Beyer D, Friedland J, et al. American Brachytherapy Society (ABS) recommendations for transperineal permanent brachytherapy of prostate cancer. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 1999;44:789–799. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources