Study Looks at Radiation Therapy Utilization vs. Availability

A new study in the journal Cancer has analyzed the utilization of radiation therapy with limited evidence of benefit in terms of the treatment's availability.

Sandra L. Wong, M.D., and colleagues at the University of Michigan Department of Surgery reviewed records from more than 10,000 patients diagnosed with rectal or pancreatic cancer and found that availability predicted treatment patterns, but only in pancreatic cancer - a cancer for which use of radiation therapy had not been definitively established as the standard of care. Patients with pancreatic cancer were twice as likely to receive radiation therapy if the service was offered at the hospital where they received surgery.

For rectal cancer, the review revealed that patients were equally likely to receive radiation therapy whether or not the hospital performing surgery offered radiation therapy services.

The authors concluded that "adjuvant radiation therapy for pancreatic cancer is either being overutilized at hospitals with radiation facilities, or underutilized at centers without them." The article appears in the Feb. 15, 2007, issue of Cancer and the Jan. 8, 2007, online edition.