RENORT: a project to analyze patterns of care in radiation oncology in Spain

RENORT is an application (app) developed to assess the role of radiotherapy in the treatment of cancer using the oncology information systems (OIS).

The RENORT app was used to analyze the data for all patients seen and/or treated at six radiation oncology departments in Spain in 2019. This app can be used to extract the demographic data, treatment sequence, disease status, and radiotherapy treatments from the ARIA and Mosaiq OIS.

A total of 6564 treatments were performed at these six centers in 2019. Most patients (56.9%) were males (females 43.1%). The mean patient age was 64.9 years. The most common treatment types and sites were as follows: metastases/palliative care (25.9%), followed by breast (19.0%), genitourinary (13.7%), lung (10.1%), head and neck (6.0%), rectal (6.0%), gynecological (4.9%), and other (< 4%) cancers. Distribution by disease stage was as follows: breast cancer: 75.5% early stage (stages 0, I, and II); lung: 63.1% advanced stage (III and IV); and head and neck: 72.1% advanced. Treatment intent was curative in 76.5% of cases and palliative in 23.5%. The most common techniques were intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) (41.4%), followed by three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3D-CRT) (39.2%); stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) (8.1%); brachytherapy (5.5%); radiosurgery (2.1%); fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy to the brain (1.4%); and intraoperative radiotherapy (1.4%). Hypofractionation was used in 62.3% of curative treatments (mean number of fractions = 16.5).

RENORT is a free app that is available for the two main oncology information systems used in most radiation oncology departments. This app has demonstrated the capacity to extract data from these systems, which in turns allows for a comprehensive analysis and better understanding of the role of radiotherapy in the treatment of cancer.