Make one-week radiotherapy the default in overloaded systems
Giving radiotherapy in five larger doses over one week instead of 15-25 smaller doses is proven safe for breast and prostate cancer and could treat three times as many patients on the same machines.
Randomised trials (FAST-Forward in breast, several in prostate) show that ultra-hypofractionated schedules are non-inferior for cancer control and late toxicity. In systems where the queue for a machine is the limiting factor, adopting these schedules as the national default protocol is the fastest capacity gain available, without any new hardware. The barrier is guideline inertia and fee-for-fraction payment.
- Most of the world has almost no cancer care · Seven in ten cancer deaths happen in low- and middle-income countries, where radiotherapy, pathology, surgery and drugs are scarce.
- Surgery and radiotherapy cure most, get least · Surgery and radiotherapy cure more people than drugs do, but attract a fraction of the research investment.
- Knowledge reaches practice too slowly · Knowledge diffusion is slow: it takes years for a proven result to change what most patients receive, and no one can keep up with the literature.
Pages like this
not linked directly; found by shared links- IdeaPay per course of radiotherapy, not per session, so short courses are not penalised
Shares SBRT / SABR (stereotactic radiotherapy), Surgery and radiotherapy cure most, get least, IMRT / IGRT (modern external beam), Prostate cancer.
- IdeaSingle-fraction radiotherapy as the default for painful bone metastases
Shares Surgery and radiotherapy cure most, get least, Most of the world has almost no cancer care, IMRT / IGRT (modern external beam).
- InstitutionAarhus University Hospital
Shares SBRT / SABR (stereotactic radiotherapy), Surgery and radiotherapy cure most, get least, IMRT / IGRT (modern external beam), Prostate cancer.
- IdeaReal-time margin assessment and image-guided surgery as the global standard
Shares Surgery and radiotherapy cure most, get least, Most of the world has almost no cancer care, Prostate cancer, HR-positive / HER2-negative breast cancer.
- IdeaStructured mentorship so district general surgeons perform common cancer operations safely
Shares Surgery and radiotherapy cure most, get least, Most of the world has almost no cancer care, HR-positive / HER2-negative breast cancer.
- InstitutionHacettepe University Cancer Institute
Shares SBRT / SABR (stereotactic radiotherapy), Most of the world has almost no cancer care, IMRT / IGRT (modern external beam), HR-positive / HER2-negative breast cancer.
- InstitutionHokkaido University Hospital
Shares SBRT / SABR (stereotactic radiotherapy), IMRT / IGRT (modern external beam), Prostate cancer.
- InstitutionRoyal Adelaide Hospital
Shares IMRT / IGRT (modern external beam), Prostate cancer, HR-positive / HER2-negative breast cancer.