Based on good clinical practice, timely delivery of radiation therapy can be crucial. Good clinical practice also dictates that radical course of radiotherapy treatment should not be interrupted. Where interruptions are unavoidable, compensatory treatment is required. For a wide range of fast-growing tumors, there is evidence that uncompensated interruptions to radiotherapy and prolongation of overall treatment, increase the risk of local recurrence of these tumors. The United Kingdom’s Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) recommends that treatment duration should not extend more than two days beyond...

We performed a retrospective study, identifying all patients commencing radiotherapy between March 2019 and May 2019 in our two Wide Bay Centers. Radical intent RCR category 1 were identified. The analysis was stratified into three groups: 1) patients with no treatment prolongation, 2) patients with acceptable prolongation of radiotherapy, and 3) patients with non-acceptable prolongation of therapy. The third group was further divided into two subgroups: unacceptable prolongation due to clinical reason and unexplained unacceptable prolongation of radiotherapy.

43 of 302 (14%) patients were category 1. Among these, 18.6% had no treatment prolongation, 39.5% had acceptable prolongation of radiotherapy. 42% had unacceptable prolongation of radiotherapy, with 14% of this subgroup prolonged due to clinical reasons and 28% were due to unexplained unacceptable prolongation.

Based on the results, we recommend the following: Firstly, modifications need to be made to our existing Radiation Oncologist (RO) Portal, treatment booking system to allow specific identification of category 1 patients. In MOSAIQ radiation oncology information system, we recommend setting up an automation of flagging category 1 patients and calculating their optimal finish date. When courses are populated in MOSAIQ, this should automatically flag patients whose treatments will extend beyond the optimal finish date due to scheduled interruption. This will allow ROs to plan...

1.The Royal College of Radiologists. The timely delivery of radical radiotherapy: guidelines for the management of unscheduled treatment interruptions, fourth edition [Internet]. London: The Royal College of Radiologists; 2019 January [cited 24/07/21]; 1-13. Available from https://www.rcr.ac.uk/publication/timely-delivery-radical-radiotherapy-guidelines-management-unscheduled-treatment