ESTRO 2024 - Abstract Book

S2850

Interdisciplinary - Health economics & health services research

ESTRO 2024

trials; 15.4%-55.9% for other prospective designs, 7.7%-44.5% for retrospective designs; and 6.3%-76.9% for pre- or non- clinical studies. Study designs are significantly different between the four groups (χ2 -test showing p<0.001).

Analysis of grouped endpoints for each intervention group is presented in Fig. 2. Proportions range between 0.0%- 59.5% for local, regional and survival endpoints (e.g. local control, progression-free, overall survival); 0.0%-58.7% for toxicity and quality of life endpoints (e.g. CTCAE grades, functional outcomes, QoL scores); 1.0%-29.4% for operational endpoints (e.g. duration of treatment, costs calculated, infrastructure endpoints); and 15.7%-94.1% for accuracy, physics and quality endpoints (e.g. dosimetry, beam parameters, plan quality assurances). The endpoint distribution was significantly different between the four groups (Fisher-exact p<0.001 for all endpoint groups).

Conclusion:

This bibliometrics analysis of literature demonstrates the disparities in outcomes and evidence across grouped radiotherapy interventions. These differences support the notion that different interventions, identified based on radiotherapy-specific aspects, currently are assessed using different strategies. Operational endpoints, for example, are seldom reported in most innovations, except within group I, whereas clinically oriented endpoints are more predominant in group II, III and IV. Groups II-III-IV demonstrate a variable but overall very limited amount of clinical trials, confirming previous data (3), with variable proportions of other prospective designs reported. Group I, contrarily, shows a focus on non-/pre-clinical studies and only a limited amount of any prospective research.

Interpretation of this data should be done cautiously however; limitations of this study include bias due to limited data available in analysed abstracts, further analysis will need to confirm these preliminary results.