Evidence-based estimation and radiotherapy utilisation rate in Andalusia

The objective of this study was to estimate the theoretical needs -based on evidence- of radiotherapy treatments (RDT) in Andalusia, compare these needs with actual use of RDT in 2006 and analyse their evolution from 2003.

Correlation between quantitative variables was analysed with Pearson's correlation coefficient. This dealt with differences between administered/estimated treatments and treatments carried out in years with the Student's t-distribution, and the Xi2 test among qualitative variables.

In Andalusia, the evidence-based rate of cancer irradiation is 55%. Eighty-five percent of theoretical treatments were administered in 2006. From this group, 107% were in gynaecological tumours, 100% in breast cancer cases, 71% in head and neck cancer and 48% in lung cancers; differences in the last two conditions were significant (p<0.01). As for regional distribution, differences were reported with reference to irradiation rates (p<0.0002) and resource distribution. In the last three years, an increment of 17% was observed in treatments conducted in public hospitals. The rate increased from 61% (with regard to optimal values) to 85% in 2006; in a parallel way, an increment was seen in therapy units (from 22 to 26) and radiation oncologists (from 57 to 69).

Despite the increment of irradiation rates seen in the last years, there is still a serious underutilisation of RDT for some cancer types (lung, head and neck cancer), as well as a great variability in the use of RDT between hospitals.