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Background and Purpose: In planning to meet evidence based needs for radiotherapy, guidelines for the provision of capital and human resources are central if access, quality and safety are not to be compromised. A component of the ESTRO-HERO (Health Economics in Radiation Oncology) project is to document the current availability and content of guidelines for radiotherapy in Europe., Materials and Methods: An 84 part questionnaire was distributed to the European countries through their national scientific and professional radiotherapy societies with 30 items relating to the availability of guidelines for equipment and staffing and selected operational issues. Twenty-nine countries provided full or partial evaluable responses., Results: The availability of guidelines across Europe is far from uniform. The metrics used for capital and human resources are variable. There seem to have been no major changes in the availability or specifics of guidelines over the ten-year period since the QUARTS study with the exception of the recent expansion of RTT staffing models. Where comparison is possible it appears that staffing for radiation oncologists, medical physicists and particularly RTTs tend to exceed guidelines suggesting developments in clinical radiotherapy are moving faster than guideline updating., Conclusion: The efficient provision of safe, high quality radiotherapy services would benefit from the availability of well-structured guidelines for capital and human resources, based on agreed upon metrics, which could be linked to detailed estimates of need., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Abstract Purpose The primary treatment of choice for patients with phyllodes tumor of the breast (PTB) is surgery. Two major problems regarding the treatment of such patients remain unclear: what is the appropriate surgical margin and what role is played by adjuvant radiotherapy (ART). Methods The study provides a retrospective review of all patients with PTB treated between 1952 and 2013 at a single institute. The histology slides were re-examined based on WHO criteria. The clinical characteristics and therapy outcomes were obtained. The five-year survival with no evidence of disease (NED) was used as the end point. Results The study population comprised 340 women with PTB. Fifty-five percent of the patients were diagnosed with the benign, 11.8% with borderline and 33.2% with malignant PTB. All the patients received primary treatment with surgery (mastectomy–27.1%, and BCS– 72.9%). Local recurrence (LR) was found in 28 (9.1%) of these patients. Four patients with borderline and 8 with malignant PTB who were treated with BCS and had tumor-free margins < 1 cm received ART. None of these patients had LR and all survived 5 years NED. Of the 340 patients from our group, 294 (86.4%) survived five-years NED. Conclusion The prognosis for benign PTB is excellent and can be cured with surgery alone. A sufficient margin would be 0.1 cm (data from the literature) or 0.2–0.4 cm (our study). We recommend application of ART for such patients but the role of ART in patients with borderline and malignant PTB treated with BCS and with surgical margin < 1 cm remains uncertain. Highlights • Prognosis for patients with benign PTB treated with surgery alone is excellent. • Adjuvant radiotherapy for patients with tumor-free margin <1 cm (0.2–0.8 cm) is recommend (our study). • After adjuvant radiotherapy none of patients had local recurrence. • Breast conserving surgery is accepted approach for patients with all PTB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The aim of the study was to present an institutional experience in radiation therapy of primary invasive vaginal carcinoma (PIVC) patients treated in the Krakow Branch of Centre of Oncology, with special regard to treatment effectiveness and failure causes. Materials and Methods: Between February 1967 and January 2007,162 PIVC patients were treated with radical radiotherapy in the Krakow Branch of Centre of Oncology, Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Institute. Twenty-seven (16.7%) patients in Stage 1° were treated with intracavitary brachytherapy alone; for 127 (78.4%) patients in Stage 1° - IV0 intracavitary brachytherapy was combined with external radiation therapy; and eight (4.9%) patients in Stage IVA0 were given only external radiotherapy. Results: In the investigated group of 162 patients, five-year disease-free survival was observed in 46.3% of the cases. Patient age and FIGO Stage of neoplastic disease were independent prognostic factors. Five-year disease-free survival was observed in 64.9% of the patients < 60 years of age and only in 30.7% > 60 years of age; and in 62.3% of PIVC patients in Stages I and II0 as compared to 19.7% of Stages III0 and IV0 cases. Among 78 patients who died of PIVC, in 60 (76.9%) cases the cause of death was locoregional failure; in six (7.7%), locoregional failure and distant metastasis; and in 12 (15.4%), distant metastasis. Conclusions: Radiotherapy is effective treatment for PIVC patients. Age below 60 years and non-advanced neoplastic disease were independent favourable prognostic factors in the investigated group of patients. The primary cause of treatment failure was failure to achieve locoregional disease control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study that analyses the survival and value of prognostic factors in patients with Stage I and II endometrial carcinoma (EC). EC has become the most common disease of the females of Western countries. The five-year overall survival rate in the observed group was 17 percent and Cox multivariate analysis demonstrated that the only independent prognostic factor was the site of recurrence. If the recurrence is traced it can be cured with aggressive surgery or radiotherapy.