Prog Med Phys.  2015 Jun;26(2):59-71. 10.14316/pmp.2015.26.2.59.

Use of Statistical Process Control for Quality Assurance in Radiation Therapy

Affiliations
  • 1Department of Radiation Oncology, Hallym University College of Medicine, Anyang, Korea. khcheong@hallym.or.kr

Abstract

The goal of quality assurance (QA) is to minimize systematic errors in order to maintain the quality of a certain process. Statistical process control (SPC) has been utilized for QA in radiation therapy field since 2005 and is changing QA paradigm. Its purpose is to maintain a process within the given control limits while monitoring of error trends such as variation or dispersion. SPC can be applied to all QA aspects of radiotherapy; however, a medical physicist should have enough knowledge about the application of SPC to QC/QA procedures. In this paper, the author introduce a concept of SPC and review some previously reported studies those used SPC for QA in radiation therapy.

Keyword

Statistical process control (SPC); Quality control (QC); Quality assurance (QA); Control chart

MeSH Terms

Radiotherapy

Reference

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