Continuous quality improvement in radiotherapy: the role of the "Istituto Superiore di Sanità" in its application over the national territory.
The "Laboratorio di Fisica" of the "Istituto Superiore di Sanità" has undertaken some initiatives to tackle the problem of patients' radiation protection in relation to the issues of radiotherapy, both with respect to the promulgation of new National and European laws and directives and to the extremely rapid and innovative technological developments involved in this field. First, interdisciplinary study groups were organized to identify the aspects on which recommendations to be applied at the national level could be based, and to provide for their development. Second, a national plan was launched for continuous quality improvement in radiotherapy, intended as a program of controls and correctives implemented in radiotherapy to ensure its compliance with predefined standards together with its continuous improvement. Within this plan, a group of experts coordinated by the "Istituto Superiore di Sanità" has promoted two different intercomparisons of dosimetry to evaluate the differences between the measured dose and the calculated dose 1) with reference to a water phantom and 2) during a simulated treatment of rectal cancer in a plastic phantom.
Viti
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Reparto di Fisica Biomedica, Laboratorio di Fisica, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Viale Regina Elena 299, 00161 Roma, Italy. viti@iss.it
D000047:Academies and Institutes; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D009313:National Health Programs; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011835:Radiation Protection / Q000592:standards*; D011874:Radiometry; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage / Q000592:standards; D020266:Radiotherapy, Conformal / Q000592:standards*; D017749:Total Quality Management