PROCARE – project on cancer of the rectum

PROCARE Radiotherapy Reviewing Project

Within the PROCARE project, in parallel with the efforts to improve other treatment modalities for rectal cancer, preoperative radiotherapy also needs to be standardized to achieve better outcome. As part of this radiotherapy standardization, with the leadership of Professor Scalliet (UCL) and Professor Haustermans (KUL), a central review facility is being established to allow reviewing the Clinical Target Volume (CTV) and organs at risk (OAR) delineation.
This work requires a specific software (Aquilab) installation at each participating center. The Aquilab software is dedicated to patient database management with an image fusing and multimodality contouring program for Radiotherapy.

 

By 2008, 24 centers have volunteered for participating to this part of the project. In the second half of 2009, the first installation was done at UCL and KUL to test this review software. During March and April 2010 four institutions (UCL, KUL, CMSE Namur, ZNA  Middelheim) were connected to the review network to establish the review procedure. Based on the successful introduction 14 other institutions have joined continually in the radiotherapy project until October 2010.

 

The central review is based on the provided planning CT images with the delineated structures (CTV, and optionally the OAR-s) together with the TNM staging, localization, and any other relevant information. The outcome of the review (the compliance with the previously published CTV delineation guideline-Roels et al. 2006, IJROBP) can be CTV unmodified or CTV modified (modifications on the original delineation). The reviewer`s feedback should be provided within 24 hours from the proper submission. The acceptance of the CTV modification remains the discretion of the radiation oncologist of the given patient, nevertheless this decision and the finally used contours should be documented at the reviewer sites.

 

Until the end of September 2010 about 200 patients' central review have been accomplished.The review is performed by Eszter Hortobagyi (RTT, KUL) with the supervision of Prof. Haustermans and Prof. Scalliet. The patients of KUL are reviewed by Prof. Scalliet.

 

Contact

Eszter Hortobagyi (KUL) is the contact person for the Radiotherapy reviewing project:
E-mail address of the project: procare@uzleuven.be
Tel: +32 (0)16-34.76.98 


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