Intraoperative radiotherapy with electrons: fundamentals, results, and innovation.

Rationale And Objectives: To analyse the programme activity and clinical innovation and/or technology developed over a period of 17 years with regard to the introduction and the use of intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) as a therapeutic component in a medical-surgical multidisciplinary cancer hospital.

Material And Methods: To standardise and record this procedure, the Radiation Oncology service has an institutional programme and protocols that must be completed by the different specialists involved. For 17 years, IORT procedures were recorded on a specific database that includes 23 variables with information recorded on institutional protocols.

Quality assurance in radiation therapy: systematic evaluation of errors during the treatment execution.

A method to control the quality of the radiotherapy treatment during its execution has been developed. The method is based on a wide use of verification films in the practical routine of a centre together with a statistical analysis of the data obtained from them. The stepwise multiple regression analysis is applied in order to assess the influence, on the quality of the treatment, of a set of chosen factors with a certain clinical or technical significance.