The enhancement of the radiotherapy resources in Osaka, Japan; based on the Japanese structure surveys in 2003 and 2005

Abstract

In Japan, Japanese Society of Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (JASTRO) has been conducting national surveys on radiation therapy (RT) facilities every two years. In the previous study, we linked the survey data at 2003 with Osaka Cancer Registry and found (1) the RT facilities were classified into four clusters by the characteristics of the hospitals, (2) there were strong relation between the clusters of facilities and the prognosis of breast cancer patients, the prognosis of patients treated at the facilities belonging to the first cluster showed better prognoses than other cluster’s facilities. In this study, we analyzed the change of the characteristics of RT resources in Osaka, Japan by principal component analysis based on the JASTRO surveys at 2003 and 2005. Comparing the variables composing the principal components among the years, the enhancement of the RT facilities was discussed. As the results, the first component in 2003 consisted of variables relevant to facility equipment such as number of beds in the radiological departments, X-rays and X-ray CT scanners, beds in the hospitals and LINACs and so on. In 2005, variables associated with RT personnel showed the higher contribution to the first component, such as full-time radiology oncologists (ROs), nurses in the radiology departments, diagnostic doctors and medical technologists and so on. Plotting the both results on the same 1^st-2^nd component plane, the facilities belonging to the first cluster showed apparent change, that would be the effect of whether the introduction of ROs was early or not. For the future we are planning to examine the effect of the RT facilities for the change of the patients prognosis.