ESTRO 2025 - Abstract Book

S4287

RTT - Service evaluation, quality assurance and risk management

ESTRO 2025

Conclusion: Prioritising the support of therapeutic radiographers RTP from maternity leave is essential and this evaluation highlights that this support can be developed and improved. By implementing some simple strategies, a positive RTP for all therapeutic radiographers can be achieved.

Keywords: Maternity leave, Return to practice, Support.

References: 1. Clarke, V., & Braun, V. (2013). Successful qualitative research : a practical guide for beginners . SAGE. 2. Nightingale, J., Appleyard, R., McNamara, J., Panchbhaya, M., Posnett, J., & Stone, J. (2022). Gender diversity in therapeutic radiography: A mixed methods exploration of the gender influences impacting on male students' career choices. Radiography (London, England.1995); Radiography (Lond), 28 (2), 258 266. https://10.1016/j.radi.2022.02.005

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Digital Poster Comparison of radiotherapy waiting time definitions for a large RT department in Sweden Mruga Gurjar 1 , Jesper Lindberg 1,2,3 , Caroline Olsson 1,3

1 Medical Radiation Sciences, Institute of Clinical Sciences, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden. 2 Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden. 3 Regional Cancer Centre West, Western Sweden Healthcare Region, Gothenburg, Sweden Purpose/Objective: Escalating waiting times are common in radiotherapy (RT) and have been reported to increase the risk of local recurrence [1]. Nonetheless, associated waiting times and delays are reported in multiple ways and are still ambiguous [2,3]. The date of referral to RT is often used to calculate waiting times and to quantify patient numbers on a waiting list. However, a referral may be dated weeks/months before the patient is medically ready to start treatment. Some RT departments have added a target date to the referral (due date), when the patient ideally should begin RT given the completion of other treatments. Overall, there are several options to choose the starting point for delay calculations, which in turn impacts how long a patient will contribute to a department’s waiting list statistics. The purpose of this study is to examine different waiting time definitions and delays at an RT department. Material/Methods: We used one-year data from a large RT department in Sweden during 2023. Waiting time to treatment start were quantified using three references: referral date, first preferred date (soft deadline) and last preferred date (hard deadline). We assessed curative patients from breast and prostate diagnosis groups and grouped remaining diagnoses together. A descriptive approach was employed to report the distribution of delays for each group by waiting time definition and with a delay defined as total days exceeding the respective reference date. Results: The dataset included 2911 patients: 1345 with breast cancer, 872 with prostate cancer, and 694 from other diagnoses. Of these, 435 (14%) patients started treatment exactly on either of their treatment-start due dates. Altogether, 64% breast and 40% prostate cases started treatment between the soft and hard deadline and 26% breast and 55% prostate cases started after their hard deadline (Table 1). The distribution of delay with referral as reference peaked at four weeks, correspondingly at two weeks for the soft deadline reference and one week for the hard deadline reference (Figure 1).