Patient follow-up as part of quality assurance in radiation therapy to monitor the outcome of treatment

In 2009, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) commissioned the SSK with revising a recommendation from 1998 that involves the documentation of the effects of radiation therapy. As a result of this commission, the SSK came to the conclusion that the effects of radiation treatment can only be documented to a satisfactory level if every patient is monitored for a sufficient period of time following treatment. At the very least, patients who were subjected to radiation as a form of therapy must be given aftercare and followed-up in order to detect and document early, late and extremely late side effects. As a result, this follow-up is to be considered part of the treatment process.

In order to achieve this, the SSK recommends the following:

• Follow-up provided as a quality assurance measure for radiation therapy patients must remain the responsibility of the doctor with relevant radiation protection expertise who administers the therapy
• The follow-up period of radiation therapy must be in line with the anticipated disease progression and latency periods of the potential side effects
• The scientific associations for radiotherapists are to draft reports on the type and scope of data to be collected for individual tumour entities and update them with the latest scientific findings
• When it comes to a follow-up system for radiation therapy, sustainable structures need to be created and existing ones optimised
• Stable structures need to be put in place to collect, store and evaluate data

The SSK considers the most pressing matter at hand to be the need for the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) to create a legal basis so that these recommendations can be implemented.

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URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-201309238159
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URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-201309249150