Investigation on development status of radiotherapy in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region / 中华放射医学与防护杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the development status of tumor radiotherapy in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region in order to provide reference for the decision-making of the competent administrative departments for public health.Methods A questionnaire survey was conducted by the aid of on-site inspection and telephone or Email investigation among the medical institutions in Guangxi to know the current status of radiotherapy units and settings,human resources,allocation of radiotherapy facilities,and standardization of medical practices.Results Up to the end of August 2014,radiotherapy was carried out in 39 hospitals,with other 5 hospitals under preparation for construction.Among these 40 hospitals were three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy in 38,intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) in 23,and image guided radiation therapy (IGRT) in 5.There were 48 linear accelerators,15 afterloading therapy apparatus,and 4 γ-knife or X-knife in Guangxi.There were 647 professional personnel (except nurses),including 322 radiation oncologists,100 radiotherapy physicists,213 radiotherapy technologists and 12 professional engineers.There were 2 000 to 2 500 hospital beds and 20 000 cancer patients had received radiotherapy in 2013.1 600 to 2 000 people received treatment on average every day.Conclusions The present radiotherapy resources in Guangxi are insufficient and the input to radiotherapy equipment is deficient,with low proportion of cancer patients treated with radiotherapy.Because of the uneven radiotherapy quality among different hospitals,the reasonable planned development and unified diagnostic and treatment practices are required to improve radiotherapy level in Guangxi.For shortage of medical staff and high-quality physical and technical personnel,the improvements are needed by fostering and introduction of personnel.Compared with developed regions in China,the introduction of new technology is largely needed.