The Development of Guidelines and Recommendations for Radiation Oncology

 ESTRO, as a leading European professional oncology organisation, has established a scientific organisation named the European Institute of Radiotherapy (EIR) to promote awareness, research and development and quality management in the field of radiation oncology.

The main tasks of EIR can be summarised as follows:

·         to provide guidelines and/or recommendations on cancer management related to radiation oncology, which should be evidence based and rooted in a multi-disciplinary approach

·         to provide an authoritative European view on topics important and relevant to radiation oncology which includes primary radiotherapy technology, related technology such as imaging and basic biology, oncology research relating to radiation therapy, clinical practice issues, and legislation relating to the practice of radiation oncology 

·         to stimulate relevant research.

The first EIR document, “The ESTRO-EIR report on 3D CT-based in-room image guidance systems: A practical and technical review and guide”, has been finalised and published (Radiother Oncol 94, 129-144, 2010).

Download the document >>> 

In addition, a number of existing GEC-ESTRO documents on guidelines and recommendations concerning various aspects of brachytherapy have been endorsed by EIR.

Access the Brachytherapy guidelines >>>

A number of task groups will soon start with their activities, which are related to the development of guidelines for early stage prostate cancer; guidelines for early stage rectal cancer; integration of biological measurements into clinical radiotherapy trials, and the use of MRI in radiotherapy. Physicists of GEC-ESTRO are members of AAPM task groups involved in the development of common AAPM-ESTRO recommendations concerning dose calculations and dose measurements for brachytherapy sources.  

The ultimate goal of developing these guidelines and recommendations is to improve the quality of radiotherapy in Europe. We encourage ESTRO members to submit proposals for task groups to achieve this aim. 

Members:

Members of the EIR Steering Committee include representation from all disciplines within radiation oncology. These member affiliations reflect the existing standing committees of ESTRO (Clinical, RTT, Physics, Radiobiology, GEC-ESTRO (brachytherapy) and ETC) as well as the President of ESTRO and the Editor-in-Chief of Radiotherapy and Oncology.

Vincent Khoo and Ben Mijnheer
Chairpersons of the EIR Steering Committee

Jean Bourhis
President of ESTRO 

·          Clinical Committee: Donal Hollywood 

·          Physics Committee: Tommy Knöös

·          Radiobiology Committee: Adrian Begg 

·          RTT Committee: Andreas Osztavics 

·          GEC-ESTRO (brachytherapy) Committee: György Kovacs 

·          Education & Training Committee: Richard Pötter

 

ESTRO Committees European Institute of Radiotherapy Clinical Committee Physics Committee Radiobiology Committee RTT Committee Education and Training Committee GEC-ESTRO Brachytherapy Committee