Defining Clinical Indications of Proton Beam Therapy at National Level in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Defining Clinical Indications of Proton Beam Therapy at National Level in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Med J. 2019 Sep;40(9):879-886 Authors: AlHussain H, Balbaid A, Malyapa R, AlOthman M, Bahadur YA, Tunio MA, Al Asiri M Abstract The Saudi Particle Therapy Centre (SPTC) is establishing proton beam therapy (PBT) services within Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Thus, national guidelines for the pertinent draft, and recommendations of PBT for cancer patients are utmost important. Saudi Particle Therapy Centre invited a panel of expert radiation oncologists practicing within KSA to formulate national clinical practice guidelines for the referral, absolute and relative indications and dose/fractionation for PBT. After identifying the key clinical questions, ample search through PubMed, EMBASE, and various search drives was accomplished for appropriate meta-analyses, clinical trials, case-control, and case series studies, and case reports. Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach was incorporated to formulate various recommendations. Saudi Particle Therapy Centre expert panel recommended PBT as utter modality for ocular tumors, base of skull/spine tumors, hepatocellular carcinoma, all pediatric central nervous system (CNS) malignancies, para-nasal sinuses/nasal cavity tumors and for re-irradiation of all sites aimed for cure. However, PBT may be contemplated, as a relative indication if no ...
Source: Saudi Medical Journal - Category: Middle East Health Tags: Saudi Med J Source Type: research