Project Summary

The Patterns of Care for Brachytherapy (PCB) is a survey of brachytherapy facilities in the entire European Union (EU). It is a survey based on a comprehensive questionnaire with specific questions about lung, gynaecology, breast, and prostate brachytherapy. The survey was launched by the GEC – ESTRO steering committee in Brussels in 2001. It has this far extended to Latin America and it is hoped that the USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand can join soon. Collaborations are made possible through the regional and national brachytherapy societies.

Description of Work

The participation of national co-ordinators is crucial to the success of the study, especially during the data collection stage, which is now underway. National co-ordinators are responsible for promoting awareness of the project in their respective countries, informing all the cancer centres in their country, and for encouraging the participation of all centres. As a result of these efforts, it is possible to obtain detailed information about brachytherapy at different levels and, consequently, have a better idea of the current status of brachytherapy resources and facilities. The questionnaire is hosted at http://pcb.estro.be  Data privacy is assured through the use of a login name and password, which allows for varying levels of permission to access data according to the following hierarchy:

• General Coordinator  Has complete access to all data. Since there are two co-ordinators, the European co-ordinator has access to all data from the European centres while the co-ordinator for Latin America has access to all data from the Latin American centres.
  
• National Coordinator Has access to the data from all the centres in his/her country.

Each centre has complete control to add, erase, or access its own data. Because this is an international project, it is possible to complete the questionnaire in Spanish, French, or English, depending on the preference of each centre. For registration details to the questionnaire or if you wish to know more about this study please contact Montse Ventura at montseventura@iconcologia.net

Latest Reports

>>> view the PCB report dated 8 October 2008

 Completed Surveys

>>> view the survey for The Netherlands with completed data for 2007

Partners

The general co-ordinator for Europe is Dr. Ferrán Guedea and for Latin America, Dr. Luis Pinillos. Below is a list of the national co-ordinators who have agreed to participate in this project:

Europe

Argentina		Marcela de La Torre
Bolivia		Rene Luis Delgado
Brasil		Paulo Novaes
Chile		Andres Cordova Bernhardt
Colombia		Rosalba Ospino Peña
Costa Rica		Hugo Recinos
Cuba		Rolando Camacho
Equador		Edwin Cevallos
El Salvador		Alexander Molina
Guatemala		Víctor Izaguirre
Honduras		Ricardo Bulnes
Mexico		Adela Poitevin Chacon
Nicaragua		Reynaldo Castillo
Panama		Ricardo Britton
Paraguay		Gustavo Guggiari
Peru		Gustavo Sarria
Dominican Republic		Nalia Cruz Ventura
Uraguay		Alvaro Luongo
Venezuela		Pilar Sempere