• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.11 no.7
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• pp.627-635
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• 2017

Brachytherapy is generally performed in conjunction with external radiation therapy, and the treatment course is very complicated, which can lead to radiation accidents. In order to solve this problem, we designed the process map by applying the failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) method to the Brachytherapy and scored the risk priority number (RPN) for each treatment course based on this process map. The process map consisted of five steps, Patient consulting", "Brachytherapy simulation", "CT simulation", "Brachytherapy treatment planning" and "Treatment". In order to calculate the RPN, doctor, medical physicist, dose planners, therapist, and nurse participated in the study and evaluated occurrence, severity, and lack of detectability at each detail step. Overall, the process map is preceded by a patient identification procedure at each treatment stage, which can be mistaken for another patient, and a different treatment plan may be established to cause a radiation accident. As a result of evaluating the RPN for the detailed steps based on the process map, overall "Patient consulting" and "Brachytherapy treatment planning" step were evaluated as high risk. The nurses showed a tendency to be different from each other, and the nurses had a risk of 55 points or more for all the procedures except "Treatment", and the "Brachytherapy simulation" step was the highest with 88.8 points. Since the treatment stage differs somewhat for each medical institution performing radiotherapy, it is thought that the risk management should be performed intensively by preparing the process map for each institution and calculating the risk RPN.