Pattern and experience with @entity5 treated with the Chinese GWGP80 XXXX unit at Mulago Hospital, Kampala.

@entity1 @entity135 @entity2826 @entity0 @entity5 @entity1953
OBJECTIVES: To review the pattern of @entity5 treated at Mulago hospital with the new Chinese GWGP80 @entity1953 -60 unit and to analyse its breakdowns, downtime and attempts at repairs during its first two years of operation and to assess its reliability and safety. DESIGN: A retrospective cross-sectional study. DATA SOURCE: This involved analysing data from the radiotherapy records book, the @entity1 's case notes and a "fault's Log book" which was opened on the day the machine was commissioned. All causes of non-performance were documented in this book and an assessment of the severity of breakdowns, period of downtime and repairs carried out was done. Faults requiring only a few minutes maintenance work or non-performance due to general power failure were however excluded. All @entity1 who had been treated earlier on the orthovoltage machine and were re-treated on the @entity1953 unit were also excluded from the analysis. SETTING: Department of Radiotherapy, Mulago Hospital, Kampala, Uganda. RESULTS: One thousand and forty eight new @entity1 were treated during this period. Three hundred and fifty nine were males and 689 were females. @entity5 was by far the commonest @entity5 seen (37.2%) followed by @entity135 (16.0%), @entity0 (13.8%) and @entity2826 (10.5%). There were 47 machine faults. Most of these were relatively minor requiring only a few hours of maintenance work. Two of these faults were however major with downtime of more than a week. These were due to a failure of the "force back system" of the radioactive source necessitating it to be hammered back into the safe position. CONCLUSION: The Chinese GWGP80 @entity1953 unit has effectively treated a large number of @entity5 @entity1 but the failures of the "force back system" of its radioactive source compromise its radiation safety and ideally would require a change in the engineering design to decrease on the associated radiation hazards.
