A quality control program for radiotherapy in Hodgkin's disease

摘要

The importance of the quality of radiotherapy for Hodgkin's disease has been stressed, particularly in specific American and German studies. A quality control program for verification of technical files for each patient was implemented during the EORTC H8 protocol for patients with a supra-diaphragmatic stage I & II Hodgkin's disease. Today, 161 technical files have been reviewed. While the definition of the target volumes were in accordance with the protocol for most of the patients, we observed 13.6% of major deviations in terms of treated volumes, and 39.7% of major deviations in terms of dose (for volumes, a number of deviations were in the cervical areas, where the upper limit of the field was lowered in view of protecting the parotids, but the others were due to inadequate margins around the mediastinum and the hilum). Some of the dose deviations were due, in some cases, to the addition of a sub-carinal block after 30 Gy, but also, in cervical areas, in misinterpretation of the protocol. In conclusion, such a quality control program is justified by the number of major deviations which have been observed; it seems justified to carry out this program in the future H9 protocol.