TY  - JOUR
TI  - Radiotherapy Equipment and Workforce in Turkey
AB  - OBJECTIVE
Radiotherapy is a costly treatment that requires the proper use of human and financial resources. In 
any country, the radiation therapy equipment and workforce should be well planned for the appropriate use of resources and radiotherapy treatments. For proper planning, the current situation should be 
assessed and prepared for the targets to be achieved. This study aims to determine the current status of 
radiotherapy devices and the workforce in Turkey.
METHODS
Questions were sent to 141 centers to evaluate the number of devices, technical specifications, date of 
manufacture and the number of radiation oncologists, medical physicists, and radiotherapy technicians 
by Turkish Medical Physics Association. The responses from the centers were analyzed by region and 
compared with the situation in other countries.
RESULTS
The data collected in the study are from December 2019. The rate of radiotherapy devices in Turkey according to population is estimated to be 3.14 megavoltage (MV) external devices per 1 million people. 
The distribution is not homogeneous in all regions. The highest value is 4.59 in the Central Anatolia 
region, and the lowest is 0.78 in the Eastern Anatolia region. For each MV device, on average, there are 
1.58 specialists in medical physics.
CONCLUSION
Our study has shown that Turkey has made significant progress in terms of radiotherapy equipment and 
workforce in the past decade. Nevertheless, although Turkey did not reach the standards of high-income 
European countries, it is comparable to middle-income countries.
AU  - GURDALLI, Salih
AU  - YARAY, KADİR
AU  - BECERİR, Hatice
AU  - ÇAKIR, AYDIN
AU  - YAPICI, Bülent
AU  - GÜRSOY, TAMER OĞUZ
AU  - Alkaya, Fadime
DO  - 10.5505/tjo.2021.2896
PY  - 2021
JO  - Türk Onkoloji Dergisi
VL  - 36
IS  - 4
SN  - 1300-7467
SP  - 512
EP  - 518
DB  - TRDizin
UR  - http://search/yayin/detay/518966
ER  -