ESTRO 2023 ROSQ Reports
Below are the testimonies from Radiation Therapists (RTTs) who attended ESTRO 2023, sharing their experiences and the important messages they took home to enhance their careers.
“We all make a considerable impact through our research and our contributions to the Radiation Oncology community”
My name is Michèle Keane and I am a radiation therapist working at the Radiation Oncology department at the Universitätsspital in Zürich, Switzerland. ESTRO 2023 in Vienna was fortunately my second opportunity to attend the annual ESTRO conference, having also attended last year in Copenhagen. I was once again amazed by the variety of talks and topics available over the course of the conference, providing something for all professions and areas of interest. I personally found the sessions focusing on re-irradiation to be particularly interesting, as this currently is, and will be a topic of investigation and further discussion to create constraint guidelines for patients requiring retreatment. This also focuses our attention on radiation safety and protection, as we are taking into consideration the ALARA principle and how to safely approach re-irradiating a previously treated tumour region. My take-home message is that we all make a considerable impact through our research and our contributions to the Radiation Oncology community, and attending such a conference opens one’s eyes to that fact. I left the conference feeling motivated and inspired to return to our department and to continue making a positive impact where possible.
Michèle Keane PgDip, BSc
“There was a lot of focus on education and advancement of the role of RTTs”
I am a Radiation therapist working at USZ as a dosimetrist, and working part-time in clinical research.
I really enjoyed seeing so many people back at ESTRO live this year as was great to see so many full seminar rooms and lively discussions.
There was a lot of focus on education and the advancement of the role of RTTs, which was very inspiring. I also very much enjoyed the interdisciplinary session on adaption as we very frequently work together with the entire MDT and so it makes a lot of sense to have these discussions together.
Madalyne Chamberlain BRT
Dosimetrist
Department of Radiation Oncology, University Hospital Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
“Looking for knowledge from a multi-disciplinary viewpoint helps us to provide the best care for patients”
My name is Kira Wang I am a Radiation therapist in the radiation oncology department at University Hospital Zurich in Switzerland. This was my first conference. I found it extremely interesting and educational but also overwhelming with how many presentations there were. I would often find that multiple things were interesting and that I wanted to attend events happening at the same time. So I had to pick between the two or hop between lectures, including a radiobiology session on tumour radiobiology; targeting cyclin-dependent Kinase 1 to radiosensitise pancreatic cancer; the role of dietary fibre in both radiosensitising tumours and sparing intestines from acute radiation toxicity.
There were also innovations in paediatric care using VR and sessions on radiation safety that I visited about Tumour Radiobiology on Sunday at 10:30 am! There was also a session on the possibilities of improving patient care being endless on Monday at 15:00.
I really enjoyed going to sessions from all tracks, and not just the RTT ones. The things I learned also help inform my own practice. My take-home message is that we shouldn’t limit our knowledge to just what is relevant to our specific roles and that constantly looking for knowledge from a multi-disciplinary viewpoint helps us to provide the best care for patients.
Kira Wang
Department of Radiation Oncology, University Hospital Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
“We have to keep improving to give our patients the best treatments”
I am Lisanne van Klaveren. I am 24 years old. I work at the UniversitätsSpital Zürich in the Radiation Oncology Department as an RTT. The conference was a great experience, especially since it was the first time for me. It was interesting to see what people are researching in our field and in which direction the new developments are going.
The most interesting session of ESTRO 2023 session for me was a session about tumour-specific innovations in the RTT Track. On May 14th I visited a radiobiology session about tumour radiobiology in the radiobiology track. Another session that I heard about was about Individualising of radiotherapy doses according to normal tissue effects. In the session optimising IGRT and motion management strategies, I learned a lot about radiation safety in radiation oncology.
My take-home message from ESTRO 2023 is that there are many developments and implementations of new techniques that will benefit patient treatment, although there remains a lot to be discovered and we have to keep improving to give our patients the best possible treatments.
Lisanne van Klaveren
Department of Radiation Oncology, University Hospital Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
“Progress and change are fueled by us sharing our findings, questioning each other and ourselves”
My name is Katerina Nilo and I am the deputy chief therapist at University Hospital in Zurich. This was my first ESTRO conference. My impressions from the conference are many, but I would say something that will stay with me, is the amount of knowledge that one can gather in a few days. One of my favorite sessions was on reducing the target volume in external beam therapy. The sessions about modifications in image-guided radiation therapy taught me a lot about how we can improve radiation safety within our discipline. My take-home message is that progress and change are fueled by us sharing our findings, questioning each other and ourselves and always pushing to come together and through discussion to figure out what the best solutions for our patients are.
Katerina Nilo
Department of Radiation Oncology, University Hospital Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland