“A Recent Article in the Red Journal”: A Rad Onc Policy Journal Club

For the first time ever, a lost episode has been found!

The Accelerators (Drs. Matt Spraker and Simul Parikh) recorded a "reaction" episode to a brief report published in December 2023 in the IJROBP shortly after it published.

The article demonstrates that freestanding departments have been slightly slower to implement hypofractionation for treatment of breast and prostate cancers that hospital-based departments. The authors argue that this burdens the healthcare system and propose ROCR as an incentive to drive increased use of these techniques.

In this episode, we discuss this article in detail and share our opinion that the authors examined this issue in a very disingenuous way.

Yet, if you holistically analyze this issue, the data does not support the author's argument.

Is the goal to help readers understand the complexities of our system or were data curated to support implementation of ROCR policy? You'll have to ask the authors. 

Here are some resources we feel are important complements to this episode:

• Out.Of.The.Basement podcast on the ASTRO "collaboration letter" and propaganda
• Out.Of.The.Basement podcast, a rural doctor's thoughts on The ASTRO President speaking at "The President's Cancer Panel"
• Out.Of.The.Basement podcast, on unaddressed significant conflicts of interest among ROCR authors
• Mark Storey's rebuttal to the IJROBP article

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