Highlights
- •We investigated the current status of radiotherapy in Japan.
- •VMAT was used at a level comparable to that of static gantry IMRT.
- •Target-based registration using integrated CT was the modality most frequently used.
- •Breath holding was the most commonly used technique.
Abstract
Over the last several decades, there have been great advances in radiotherapy with
the development of new technologies and modalities, and radiotherapy trends have changed
rapidly. To comprehend the current state of radiotherapy in Japan, the QA/QC 2016–2017
Committee of the Japan Society of Medical Physics set up an intensity-modulated radiotherapy/image-guided
radiotherapy (IMRT/IGRT) working group and performed a Web-based survey to show the
current status of radiotherapy in Japan. The Web-based questionnaire, developed using
Google Forms, contained 42 items: 7 on stereotactic radiotherapy implementation, 4
on IMRT, 24 on IGRT, and 7 on respiratory motion management. The survey was conducted
from 17 January to 9 March of 2018; in total, 335 institutions provided data. The
results show that volumetric modulated arc therapy was used at a level comparable
to that of static gantry IMRT. For IGRT, machine-integrated computed tomography (CT),
including kilovoltage or megavoltage cone-beam CT and megavoltage CT, was used at
many institutions in conjunction with target-based image registration. For respiratory
motion management, breath holding was the most commonly used technique. Our hope is
that multi-institutional surveys such as this one will be conducted periodically to
elucidate the current status of radiotherapy and emerging developments in this field.
If our questionnaire was distributed worldwide, in the same format, then global trends
in radiotherapy could be better understood.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: July 22, 2019
Accepted:
July 14,
2019
Received in revised form:
July 4,
2019
Received:
March 13,
2019
Identification
Copyright
© 2019 Associazione Italiana di Fisica Medica. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
