New radiation therapy guidelines for nonmelanoma skin cancer stress multidisciplinary care

Key takeaways:

• The guidelines emphasize the importance of a multidisciplinary team during radiation therapy for nonmelanoma skin cancer.
• This team must include a radiation therapist, radiation oncologist and medical physicist.

The Dermatology Association of Radiation Therapy has announced new guidelines for the treatment of nonmelanoma skin cancer, according to an association press release.

As a national nonprofit medical society working to raise awareness of radiation therapy in dermatology, the Dermatology Association of Radiation Therapy (DART) assembled members of its education and research committees to collaborate on the creation of new guidelines for radiation-based treatments for basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC).

“We’re absolutely committed to ensuring that all appropriate patients with nonmelanoma skin cancer have access to safe and effective, noninvasive, radiation-based treatments in the outpatient dermatology setting, and that those undergoing treatment receive quality care in accordance with the latest evidence-based research and best practice standards of care,” Jacob Scott, MD, DPhil, DABR, president and chairman of DART, said in the release.

The new guidelines specifically address how to use image-guided superficial radiation therapy (IGSRT), a treatment which combines high-resolution dermal ultrasound imaging with superficial radiation therapy, to treat BCC and SCC.

The recommendations state that IGSRT should only be administered in a dermatology setting by a dermatologist with the assistance of a multidisciplinary team, which must include a board-certified radiation therapist.

In addition to a board-certified radiation therapist, the guidelines emphasize that the multidisciplinary team must include a board-certified radiation oncologist and medical physicist. A grand round should be held weekly to assist dermatologists with potentially complex scenarios such as dose decay calculations, inverse square calculations and more.

“When delivered in accordance with these evidence-based guidelines, IGSRT is shown to be safe and up to 99% effective at eradicating these cancers,” Scott said.

However, while these guidelines do recommend certain procedures, they also stress that they should not replace the professional discretion of health care providers during diagnosis and treatment of BCC and SCC.