Safe Cancer Treatment with Radiotherapy: Case of Estonia

The presentation outlines the challenges that the country and the largest Cancer Care facility faced in the 1990's. The lack of modern equipment, shortage of teletherapy machines and lack of training schemes for the staff resulted in suboptimal management of cancer patients and long waiting times. With the help of the IAEA technical cooperation projects, the gaps were identified (expert advice), the staff have been trained (through fellowships, scientific visits and training courses) and new equipment procured (on the cost sharing basis). The new equipment has been installed and commissioned, which allowed the introduction of modern radiotherapy techniques and increased the number of patients treated. Future action plans will be outlined to further streamline the existing capacity and to allow the introduction of advanced radiotherapy techniques for the benefit of cancer patients in Estonia. (author)