This procedure covers sources of variation at infrastructural and personnel level. The radiotherapy department concerned must complete the EORTC RTQA Facility Questionnaire (FQ) giving details of their equipment, procedures and personnel available. The FQ requests equipment and staffing information of the radiotherapy facility with updates required when new equipment is installed and/or there are major changes in staffing.

A RTQA expert will evaluate each FQ to see if it meets the minimum criteria for acceptance which is based on periodical EORTC site characteristic surveys. The last of such surveys was published by Willmann et al, 2020.

Minimum Requirements For Department Entering Patients
In EORTC Clinical Trials (Summary)

Human resources: workload
Minimum number of full-time radiation oncologists per department 2.5
Preferred mean number of patients treated per year/full time radiation oncologist 180-250 (maximum 300)
Minimum number of full time qualified radiation physicists per department 1.3
Mean workload per radiation physicist 500 patients/year (maximum)
Minimum number of radiation technologists per treatment unit 2
Equipment: workload
Patients per year/per megavoltage unit (based on normal working hours) 700
Patients per year/per simulator (based on normal working hours) 1500

Note: An EORTC Radiation Oncology Department must have at least 1 simulator (classical and/or virtual CT-simulator), a 3D treatment planning system, access to CT scanning, other imaging equipment and 2 megavoltage treatment units preferably less than 10 years old (maximum 15 years). The units must be equipped with portal imaging.

The Facility Questionnaire can be found here. Please read the following recommendations before beginning the submission of the facility questionnaire. A PDF version of the questionnaire can be printed to facilitate collection of the necessary information for submission on-line. Please find here a list of currently validated sites.