Evaluation of plan quality, safety, and toxicity of brachytherapy for locally advanced cervical cancer in an Australian setting following changes in prescription and applicator design.

Introduction: Chemoradiotherapy with MRI-guided brachytherapy boosts is the standard of care for locally advanced cervical cancer. Data from the RetroEMBRACE and EMBRACE I trials provide dose-response curves for target volumes and OAR. This study evaluated plan quality, safety and toxicity following escalation of the CTV_HR D90 prescription from 80-90 Gy to 85-95 Gy for two different applicator designs.

Identifying paediatric patients at risk of severe hearing impairment after treatment for malignancies of the H&N/CNS with proton therapy.

Background And Purpose: A risk calculation model was presented in 2021 by Keilty et al. for determining the likelihood of severe hearing impairment (HI) for paediatric patients treated with photon radiation therapy. This study aimed to validate their risk-prediction model for our cohort of paediatric patients treated with proton therapy (PT) for malignancies of the head and neck (H&N) or central nervous system (CNS).

Learning in radiation oncology: 12-month experience with a new incident learning system.

Introduction: Safety and quality improvement are essential to clinical practice in radiation therapy as planning and treatment increase in complexity and sophistication. An incident learning system (ILS) is a safety and quality improvement tool that can aid risk mitigation to improve patient safety and quality of care. The aim of this study was to quantify the impact of implementing a new e-ILS, Learning In Radiation ONcology (LIRON), on reporting and safety culture within a local health district (LHD).

Effect of mirror system and scanner bed of a flatbed scanner on lateral response artefact in radiochromic film dosimetry.

Radiochromic film, evaluated with flatbed scanners, is used for practical radiotherapy QA dosimetry. Film and scanner component effects contribute to the Lateral Response Artefact (LRA), which is further enhanced by light polarisation from both. This study investigates the scanner bed's contribution to LRA and also polarisation from the mirrors for widely used EPSON scanners, as part of broader investigations of this dosimetry method aiming to improve processes and uncertainties.

A European Bioanalysis Forum recommendation for requiring a context-of-use statement for successful development and validation of biomarker assays.

The European Bioanalysis Forum, alongside key industry stakeholders, has been driving the discussions around the implementation of context-of use for biomarker assays to ensure that these assays are validated appropriately depending on their purpose. Insights into understanding why the implementation of context-of-use in assay strategies has also shown that the key stakeholder, or requester for the biomarker data, is responsible for providing the context-of-use statement for all biomarker assay requests. Experts from across the industry haves repeatedly sought a cross-industry recommended format in which the context-of-use statement could be provided.