Definition
The radiotherapy cluster consists of those data elements recommended for collection as best practice when the patient receives radiotherapy as part of the course of treatment for cancer. The radiotherapy cluster collects information on the radiotherapy type, dose, fractions, target site and the start and finish dates for each course of treatment.
Information on the type, dose, fractions and target site of radiotherapy is required to evaluate patterns of care, the effectiveness of different treatment modalities and treatment by patient outcome. Collecting the start and finish dates will enable an estimate of the duration of radiotherapy and the time interval from diagnosis to treatment.
The use of standard definitions and formats supports the consistent collection and management of data and enables the integration of data from different sources. It provides a common language facilitating the interpretation and analysis of results, data linkage for statistical purposes, longitudinal studies and patient patterns of care and outcome studies. These results may then inform professional guidelines and training, quality assurance and the planning and evaluation of cancer control activities, potentially improving outcomes for patients.Metadata items in this Data Set Specification
Below is a list of all the components within this Dataset Specification.
Each entry includes the item name, whether the item is optional, mandatory or conditional and the maximum times the item can occur in a dataset.
If the items must occur in a particular order in the dataset, the sequence number is included before the item name.
| Reference | Data Element | Data Type | Length | Inclusion | # |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cancer treatment—radiotherapy target site, code N[N] | - | - | mandatory | 99 | |
| Cancer treatment—radiotherapy treatment type, code N[N] | - | - | mandatory | 99 |
Comments
Guide for use:
Capturing the radiotherapy dose and fractions is problematic at some target sites, for example, head and neck cancers and breast cancers. In these cases, treatment is complex with the use of multiple treatment fields and the overall total dose may need to be determined manually by the radiation oncologist.
References
Related content
| Relation | Count |
|---|---|
| As a numerator in an Indicator | 0 |
| As a denominator in an Indicator | 0 |
| As a disaggregation in an Indicator | 0 |