Palliative radiotherapy in Canada.

We have prospectively gathered information contained in the Ontario Cancer Foundation computerized clinical data base to provide a quantitative description of palliative radiotherapy workload and fractionation practices in the management of non-small cell lung cancer over a ten-year period. We found that the proportion of radiotherapy fractionations used in palliation has declined steadily between 1984 and 1991. In the palliation of non-small cell lung cancer there has been a steady decline in the number of fractions given per course of treatment in the management of chest disease, bone metastases, and brain metastases with significant variation both between and within individual cancer treatment centres.