The Results of the Survey about Present Situation of Quality Assurance for Radiotherapy Machine of Korea

Jeong, Seonghoon; Yoon, Myonggeun; Lee, Hyunho

Abstract

As radiation therapy is one of three major cancer treatment methods, many cancer patients get radiation therapy. Because of the invisible and scattering characteristics of radiation, it is impossible to identify the quality and the amount of radiation and secondary cancer could be induced by scattered radiation. Because of advanced technique of radiation therapy and the reasons mentioned above, quality assurance of radiotherapy machine should be performed completely. International organizations such as International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) suggest report of quality assurance to recommend united method of radiotherapy machine quality assurance. Domestic society of medical physics, however, is too small to make such a report, domestic hospitals selectively choose some of contents in global suggestions. As there are no suggestions for domestic hospitals and global suggestions are being updated, we did a survey about quality assurance for radiotherapy machine. The questionnaire is composed of possession of radiotherapy machine, items performed for quality assurance and manpower, etc. 37 of 72 hospitals answered to survey. These results could be used for making domestic standard quality assurance procedure.