Provision of IMRT in the UK. Part 2: Current levels, planned expansion and obstacles to implementation

Abstract

UK Radiotherapy Departments have been surveyed to establish the current level of provision of intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and its expected growth in the next 2 to 5 years. At the time of writing, nine UK Departments have implemented IMRT, providing a national capacity of approximately 20 new patients per month. By 2005, a further nine Departments expect to have implemented IMRT. As confidence and experience of IMRT grows, streamlining of quality control (QC) and the development of class solutions for inverse treatment planning are expected to significantly reduce the preparation time required for each patient and so increase patient capacity in all Departments.

Staff training requirements, extra workloads in treatment planning and QC, identification of inverse planning parameters and current limitations of inverse treatment planning systems were identified as the key learning points for Departments that have been through the implementation process. Obstacles identified as preventing early implementation include equipment availability, staff shortages and heavy clinical workloads limiting the amount of time available for implementation.