IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0085959.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Prospective Study: Current Problems in Radiotherapy for Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Author

Listed:
  • Sharon D Stoker
  • Maarten A Wildeman
  • Renske Fles
  • Sagung R Indrasari
  • Camelia Herdini
  • Pieter L Wildeman
  • Judi N A van Diessen
  • Maesadji Tjokronagoro
  • I Bing Tan

Abstract

Introduction: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) has a high incidence in Indonesia. Previous study in Yogyakarta revealed a complete response of 29% and a median overall survival of less than 2 years. These poor treatment outcome are influenced by the long diagnose-to-treatment interval to radiotherapy (DTI) and the extended overall treatment time of radiotherapy (OTT). This study reveals insight why the OTT and DTI are prolonged. Method: All patients treated with curative intent radiotherapy for NPC between July 2011 until October 2012 were included. During radiotherapy a daily diary was kept, containing information on DTI, missed radiotherapy days, the reason for missing and length of OTT. Results: Sixty-eight patients were included. The median DTI was 106 days (95% CI: 98−170). Fifty-nine patients (87%) finished the treatment. The median OTT for radiotherapy was 57 days (95% CI: 57–65). The main reason for missing days was an inoperative radiotherapy machine (36%). Other reasons were patient’s poor condition (21%), public holidays (14%), adjustment of the radiation field (7%), power blackout (3%), inoperative treatment planning system (2%) and patient related reasons (9%). Patient’s insurance type was correlated to DTI in disadvantage for poor people. Conclusion: Yogyakarta has a lack of sufficient radiotherapy units which causes a delay of 3–4 months, besides the OTT is extended by 10–12 days. This influences treatment outcome to a great extend. The best solution would be creating sufficient radiotherapy units and better management in health care for poor patients. The growing economy in Indonesia will expectantly in time enable these solutions, but in the meantime solutions are needed. Solutions can consist of radiation outside office hours, better maintenance of the facilities and more effort from patient, doctor and nurse to finish treatment in time. These results are valuable when improving cancer care in low and middle income countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Sharon D Stoker & Maarten A Wildeman & Renske Fles & Sagung R Indrasari & Camelia Herdini & Pieter L Wildeman & Judi N A van Diessen & Maesadji Tjokronagoro & I Bing Tan, 2014. "A Prospective Study: Current Problems in Radiotherapy for Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma in Yogyakarta, Indonesia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(1), pages 1-7, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0085959
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0085959
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0085959
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0085959&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0085959?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marlinda Adham & Sharon D Stoker & Maarten A Wildeman & Lisnawati Rachmadi & Soehartati Gondhowiardjo & Djumhana Atmakusumah & Djayadiman Gatot & Renske Fles & Astrid E Greijer & Bambang Hermani & Jaa, 2014. "Current Status of Cancer Care for Young Patients with Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma in Jakarta, Indonesia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(7), pages 1-9, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0085959. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.