[From bunker construction to patient treatment: quality controls applied to modern radiotherapy techniques]. / De la construction du bunker à la prise en charge du patient : contrôles qualité des techniques modernes de radiothérapie.

Installation and use of a new radiotherapy device require an adequate quality and safety policy. The process leading to the commissioning of an accelerator following the construction of a bunker includes, among other tasks, the installation of the accelerator, the verification of compliance with the specifications, the signature of the acceptance specification as well as the process of characterization and modeling of the accelerator before its clinical use. The emergence of modern radiotherapy techniques, such as intensity modulated conformational radiotherapy and stereotactic radiotherapy, has resulted in more complex quality controls. The purpose of this article is to explain the different stages of the implementation of innovative radiotherapy techniques and to specify their features.

[Quality and safety policy implementation for a new radiotherapy device]. / Mise en place d'une politique de qualité et de sécurité lors de l'installation d'un nouvel équipement dans un service de radiothérapie.

Modern radiotherapy techniques (intensity-modulated radiotherapy, volumetric-modulated arctherapy, image-guided radiotherapy) or stereotactic radiotherapy are in expansion in most French cancer centres. The arrival of such techniques requires updates of existing equipment or implementation of new radiotherapy devices with adapted options. With the arrival of these new devices, there is a need to develop a quality and safety policy. This is necessary to ease the process from the setup to the first treated patient. The quality and safety policy is maintained to ensure the quality assurance of the radiotherapy equipment. We conducted a review of the literature on the quality and safety policy in the French legal framework that can be proposed when implementing a new radiotherapy device.