Wood Lucy, Giles Eileen, Cunningham Lisa, Le Hien, Zientara Nicole, Short Michala
Allied Health and Human Performance, University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
Department of Radiation Oncology, Central Adelaide Local Health Network, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
J Med Radiat Sci. 2025 Sep;72(3):333-340. doi: 10.1002/jmrs.885. Epub 2025 May 11.
The COVID-19 outbreak has had far-reaching impacts on cancer services worldwide. It has yet to be described how the pandemic has impacted patient selection methods for proton therapy (PT) specifically. This survey aimed to investigate the current international methods implemented for PT patient selection and to determine whether COVID-19 has impacted PT practice.
A 44-question survey was conducted from 29th January 2024 to 18th March 2024 using the Qualtrics platform. PT centres in 21 countries were invited to respond to the survey regarding patient selection methods used currently and prior to the pandemic, as well as impacts of COVID-19 on patient selection and service provision. The survey was disseminated with assistance from The Particle Therapy Co-operative Group.
Nine centres completed the survey: four in Europe, three in the United States of America (USA), and two in Asia. Diagnosis or indications lists, clinical trials group assignment, dose distribution, dose metrics, and expert recommendations were the most reported patient selection approaches within the last five years. Only one centre in the USA reported changes to patient selection approaches during the height of the pandemic, mainly ceasing use of clinical trial group assignment. Six of the nine centres continued to treat patients infected with COVID-19. Five respondents indicated various suspensions or delays for certain treatment groups.
The findings show most respondents did not alter their patient selection approaches during the pandemic. These findings, however, cannot be generalised to all PT centres due to the small sample size of respondents.
新冠疫情对全球癌症服务产生了深远影响。目前尚未有关于该疫情如何具体影响质子治疗（PT）患者选择方法的描述。本调查旨在研究当前用于PT患者选择的国际方法，并确定新冠疫情是否对PT实践产生了影响。
2024年1月29日至2024年3月18日，使用Qualtrics平台进行了一项包含44个问题的调查。邀请了21个国家的PT中心就当前及疫情前使用的患者选择方法，以及新冠疫情对患者选择和服务提供的影响进行回应。该调查在粒子治疗合作组织的协助下进行传播。
九个中心完成了调查：四个在欧洲，三个在美国，两个在亚洲。诊断或适应症清单、临床试验组分配、剂量分布、剂量指标和专家建议是过去五年中报告最多的患者选择方法。美国只有一个中心报告在疫情高峰期改变了患者选择方法，主要是停止了临床试验组分配的使用。九个中心中有六个继续治疗新冠感染患者。五名受访者表示某些治疗组有各种暂停或延迟情况。
研究结果表明，大多数受访者在疫情期间未改变其患者选择方法。然而，由于受访者样本量较小，这些结果不能推广到所有PT中心。
