ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: Current cancer treatment options include surgical intervention, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. The quality of the provision of each of them and their effective coordination determines the results in terms of benefit/risk. Regarding the radiation oncology treatments, there are not stabilised quality indicators to be used to perform control and continuous improvement processes for healthcare services. Therefore, the Spanish Society of Radiation Oncology has undertaken a comprehensive project to establish quality indicators for use with the information systems available in most Spanish healthcare services. METHODS: A two-round Delphi study examines consensus of several possible quality indicators (n = 28) in daily practice. These indicators were defined after a bibliographic search and the assessment by radiation oncology specialists (n = 8). They included aspects regarding treatment equipment, patient preparation, treatment, and follow-up processes and were divided in structure, process, and outcome indicators. RESULTS: After the evaluation of the defined quality indicators (n = 28) by an expert panel (38 radiation oncologist), 26 indicators achieved consensus in terms of agreement with the statement. Two quality indicators did not achieve consensus. CONCLUSIONS: There is a high degree of consensus in Spanish Radiation Oncology specialists on which indicators in routine clinical practice can best measure quality. These indicators can be used to classify services based on several parameters (patients, equipments, complexity of the techniques used, and scientific research). Furthermore, these indicators allow assess our current situation and set improvements' objectives.
Subject(s)
Quality Assurance, Health Care/standards , Quality Indicators, Health Care/standards , Radiation Oncology/standards , Consensus , Delphi Technique , Humans , Neoplasms/radiotherapy , Radiation Oncology/organization & administration , SpainABSTRACT
Presentation of our experience and results in the treatment of localized renal adenocarcinoma with radiotherapy supplementary to surgery. The influence of post-operative radiotherapy in the subsequent occurrence of relapse and survival is analyzed. Also, the predictive value in our series of pre-surgery VSG, FA and LDH determinations is analyzed.