ESTRO 2024 - Abstract Book

S2865

Interdisciplinary - Health economics & health services research

ESTRO 2024

($750 million) was made in North America, 25.5% ($291 million) in Europe, 7.2% ($83 million) in Asia and 0.2% ($1.7 million) in South America (Fig. 1 illustrates extent of national radiotherapy investment relative to Gross Domestic Product).

Most funding was invested in pre-clinical ($557 million, 48.9%) and translational ($213 million, 18.7%) research, with clinical studies accounting for 24.1% ($275 million). Infrastructure and global or health services research together accounted for less than 5%. Almost one third (31.3%; $260/831 million) of total pre-clinical/translational research investment was agnostic of tumour site, with 14.4% ($120/831 million) allocated to cancers of the central nervous system, 8.1% ($67/831 million) to breast and 7.8% ($65/831 million) to prostate cancers. Most clinical funding was received by breast (17.8%; $49/275 million), prostate (17.1%; $47/275 million) and head and neck (13.5%; $37/275 million) cancers. The overall tumour-site distribution of radiotherapy-related research funding does not align with cancer-related burden (Fig. 2). A majority of pre-clinical/translational ($522/831 million; 62.8%) funding was awarded for projects with a focus on improving RT efficacy, whilst $206/831 million (24.8%) was invested in projects with a focus on reducing toxicity.

Of the total $275 million invested in clinical studies, 62.8% ($173 million) was invested in interventional studies with 44.1% ($50.2 million) invested in randomised trials. 79.1% ($137 million) of interventional study funding supported investigation of radiotherapy delivery with curative intent with only 11.4% ($19.7 million) invested in studies seeking to assess the potential to reduce fractionation or avoid radiotherapy, and respectively 44.0% ($76.0 million) and 34.0% ($58.7 million) invested in improving overall survival and side-effects/quality of life. In the observational setting, 88.7% ($91 million) enabled studies assessing radiotherapy delivered with curative intent.

Brachytherapy-related awards constituted 6.0% ($16 million) of clinical spend, whilst 7.5% ($20.6 million) of clinical investment was attributed to proton and heavy ion therapies.