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. 2019 Oct 7:11:8829-8833.
doi: 10.2147/CMAR.S168941. eCollection 2019.

Physician And Patient Barriers To Radiotherapy Service Access: Treatment Referral Implications

Sara Chierchini  1 , Gianluca Ingrosso  1 , Simonetta Saldi  1 , Fabrizio Stracci  2 , Cynthia Aristei  1
Affiliations

Physician And Patient Barriers To Radiotherapy Service Access: Treatment Referral Implications

Sara Chierchini et al. Cancer Manag Res. .

Abstract

Radiotherapy is one of the mainstays of cancer treatment, and about 60% of cancer patients receive this type of treatment during their course of treatment. An evident gap between optimal and actual radiotherapy utilization proportions has recently been reported, which has been ascribed to lack of referral to radiation oncology. There are many factors influencing the radiotherapy referral, including patient anxiety about toxicity, wrong perception of efficacy and side effects by physicians and patients, insufficient knowledge of referral process. These factors, defined as barriers can be categorized in health system barriers, physician and patient barriers. In the present brief narrative review, we discussed barriers to radiotherapy referral focusing on physician and patient barriers.

Keywords: barriers; radiotherapy; referral.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

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