Evaluating Scholarly Articles in Radiation Oncology

摘要

Why is it imperative for oncologists (surgical, medical, and radiation) to critically review radiation therapy literature? Because understanding past research lays the foundation for current and future advances. Learning from past successes and failures is the goal of evaluating scholarly articles in order to ultimately determine whether specific modalities and/or treatments are efficacious. Evaluating radiation oncology literature is especially challenging due to the incessant amount of complex terminology (Table 1) and physics associated with radiation therapy (RT) delivery. Therefore, in order to truly determine whether a specific radiation oncology trial is "positive" or "negative," one must first understand common radiation terminology and "dig deep" into the methods section of the manuscript to ensure that all patients were treated in a standardized fashion.