SynthesisInternational journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics2023
Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of the Association Between Radiation Therapy Treatment Volume and Patient Outcomes.
Synthesis in International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- Intensive nursing interventions for post-treatment anxiety and depression in bladder cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2026Pooled it
- Radiotherapy, EMP and dormancy in TME: An integrated perspective on tumor microenvironments and long-term relapse.iScience · 2026Review
- Automated Assessment of Nondosimetric Aspects of Prostate Radiation Therapy Treatment Quality in a Large Plan Database.Advances in radiation oncology · 2026Article
- Apoptosis-resistant cells drive compensatory proliferation via cell-autonomous and non-autonomous functions of the initiator caspase Dronc.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Advancements in Cancer Care by Exploring Multimodality Imaging Techniques and their Applications.Current medical imaging · 2025Review
- Is Centralisation of Cancer Services Associated With Under-Treatment of Patients With High-Risk Prostate Cancer?-A National Population-Based Study.Cancer medicine · 2024Article
- Associations Between Radiation Oncologist Demographic Factors and Segmentation Similarity Benchmarks: Insights From a Crowd-Sourced Challenge Using Bayesian Estimation.JCO clinical cancer informatics · 2024Article
- Determining The Role Of Radiation Oncologist Demographic Factors On Segmentation Quality: Insights From A Crowd-Sourced Challenge Using Bayesian Estimation.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 8 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
purposeEvidence of a volume-outcome association in cancer surgery has shaped the centralization of cancer services; however, it is unknown whether a similar association exists for radiation therapy. The objective of this study was to determine the association between radiation therapy treatment volume and patient outcomes. METHODS AND MATERIALS: This systematic review and meta-analysis included studies that compared outcomes of patients who underwent definitive radiation therapy at high-volume radiation therapy facilities (HVRFs) versus low-volume facilities (LVRFs). The systematic review used Ovid MEDLINE and Embase. For the meta-analysis, a random effects model was used. Absolute effects and hazard ratios (HRs) were used to compare patient outcomes.
resultsThe search identified 20 studies assessing the association between radiation therapy volume and patient outcomes. Seven of the studies looked at head and neck cancers (HNCs). The remaining studies covered cervical (4), prostate (4), bladder (3), lung (2), anal (2), esophageal (1), brain (2), liver (1), and pancreatic cancer (1). The meta-analysis demonstrated that HVRFs were associated with a lower chance of death compared with LVRFs (pooled HR, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.87- 0.94). HNCs had the strongest evidence of a volume-outcome association for both nasopharyngeal cancer (pooled HR, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.62-0.89) and nonnasopharyngeal HNC subsites (pooled HR, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.75-0.84), followed by prostate cancer (pooled HR, 0.92; 95% CI, 0.86-0.98). The remaining cancer types showed weak evidence of an association. The results also demonstrate that some centers defined as HVRFs are undertaking very few procedures per annum (<5 radiation therapy cases per year).
conclusionsAn association between radiation therapy treatment volume and patient outcomes exists for most cancer types. Centralization of radiation therapy services should be considered for cancer types with the strongest volume-outcome association, but the effect on equitable access to services needs to be explicitly considered.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.