ASTRO participates in FDA's meeting to discuss highest level of safety for radiation therapy patients

Society members present on improving equipment usability, need for reporting system

The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) continued to advance its Target Safely initiative by participating in the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) public meeting on Device Improvements to Reduce the Number of Under-Doses, Over-Doses, and Misaligned Exposures from Therapeutic Radiation on June 9 and 10. ASTRO commends the FDA on holding this meeting to identify current issues and further develop data, which will help inform the FDA's actions to ensure the highest level of safety for radiation therapy patients.

Numerous experts from the radiation therapy community, including those from clinical practice, academia and the device industry, gathered to address safety in radiation therapy. Meeting sessions looked at specific issues with device improvements and reporting, user training, and quality assurance. Eight ASTRO members, Lawrence Marks, M.D., Bruce Thomadsen, Ph.D., Todd Pawlicki, Ph.D., Eleanor Harris, M.D., Jeff Michalski, M.D., M.B.A., Prabhakar Tripuraneni, M.D., FASTRO, Eric Ford, Ph.D., and Benedick Fraass, Ph.D., FASTRO, gave presentations discussing the potential benefits of enhanced collaboration between device users and industry to improve usability, adding safety features to improve radiotherapy devices, and the need for a national medical event reporting system for radiotherapy administrations.

Presenters addressed challenges in keeping quality assurance protocols aligned with advances in technology, while acknowledging the important role that new technology can play in supporting quality assurance.