Preventing Accidental Exposures from New External Beam Radiation Therapy Technologies

Abstract

Lessons from accidental exposures are, therefore, an invaluable resource for revealing vulnerable aspects of the practice of radiotherapy, and for providing guidance for the prevention of future occurrences. These lessons have successfully been applied to avoid catastrophic events with conventional technologies and techniques. Recommendations, for example, include the independent verification of beam calibration and independent calculation of the treatment times and monitor units for external beam radiotherapy, and the monitoring of patients and their clothes immediately after brachytherapy. New technologies are meant to bring substantial improvement to radiation therapy. However, this is often achieved with a considerable increase in complexity, which in turn brings opportunities for new types of human error and problems with equipment. Dissemination of information on these errors or mistakes as soon as it becomes available is crucial in radiation therapy with new technologies. In addition, information on circumstances that almost resulted in serious consequences (near misses) is also important, as the same type of events may occur elsewhere. Sharing information about near-misses is thus a complementary important aspect of prevention. Lessons from retrospective information are provided in Sections 2 and 4 of this report.