Radiotherapy is the use of radiation to treat disease. It is generally used in high doses to treat cancer, but is also very useful in lower doses to treat non-cancer or benign conditions.

Radiotherapy is mainly used worldwide to treat patients with cancer. It is also effective at treating many non-cancer (benign) conditions but is under-used through lack of awareness, education, funding, research and effective leadership. This group aims to improve awareness of this treatment modality and to develop and host educational materials for the benefit of physicians, patients and other stakeholders. This will include the hosting of an annual conference and collaboration with other relevant specialities and radiation oncology societies.

Benefits

The use of radiotherapy for benign conditions has significant benefits:

• Improvement in disease-specific outcomes

• Improvement in patient quality of life

• Reduction of the need for long-term treatment

• Lowered health system costs