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Program Information

Canadian Technical Quality Control Guidelines - National Document Review

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M Nielsen

M Nielsen1*, J Bissonnette2, M Milosevic2, (1) Trillium Health Partners Credit Valley Hospital site, Mississauga, ON, (2) Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, ON

SU-E-P-2 Sunday 3:00PM - 6:00PM Room: Exhibit Hall

Purpose: The Canadian Partnership for Quality Radiotherapy (CPQR) is an alliance among the national professional organizations involved in the delivery of radiation treatment in Canada. The mandate of the CPQR is to support the universal availability of high quality and safe radiotherapy for all Canadians through system performance improvement and the development of consensus-based guidelines and indicators to aid in radiation treatment program development and evaluation. One of the projects includes a comprehensive review and update of National Technical Quality Control Guidelines (formally known as the CAPCA Quality Control Standards).

Methods: The guidelines follow a generic format; concise QC guidelines can be generated for the most commonly used equipment in radiotherapy, with the emphasis on performance measures. Each subject matter is analyzed by an expert reviewer in the field and each guideline is reviewed, it is then revised after public consultation and external validation through field testing. Each guidance document is to be reviewed every two years to keep the documents current and continuously refreshed, inputting new expert findings, risk assessments, and user feedback into continually refined versions of the documents.

Results: There are currently 13 documents that are presently in the review process. This includes revamped old and new guideline documents deemed necessary by the physics community. 7 documents are posted and available for public use. 5 of these documents are still being externally validated and could be modified in the next few months. 6 documents are currently being reviewed by experts.

Conclusion: This national process provides rapid and relevant guidance for quality control of radiotherapy equipment and processes. By retaining ownership of these living documents COMP and CPQR can rapidly address issues raised by regulators.

Funding Support, Disclosures, and Conflict of Interest: This research was financially supported by the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer.

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