One Voice for Radiotherapy

As radiation oncology professionals, we know that radiotherapy is vital for curing cancer, alleviating symptoms and improving a patient’s quality of life. Access to radiotherapy is directly linked to improved survival for many cancers. However, around the world, significant regional and national disparities persist.

One way to overcome these disparities is to provide a platform for the global radiotherapy community to join together and direct attention on the vital importance of radiotherapy.

The first-ever World Radiotherapy Awareness Day (WRAD) will launch this September 7, the date the first patient was treated on a linear accelerator. WRAD’s theme will be “One Voice for Radiotherapy.” The day will include a number of endeavors including live and virtual events, social media promotions, print and broadcast announcements and stories in the media.

We announced the concept of World Radiotherapy Awareness Day in November 2024, during London Global Cancer Week. The interest and committed support from the broader radiotherapy community was overwhelming. A planning meeting was then held in March of this year, when the WRAD date, logo, theme and campaign messages were announced. The planning events were both in person and virtual and also recorded to ensure true global participation. We had over 800 registrants from all over the world at the two meetings, a testament to the enthusiasm for the WRAD initiative.

An arrary of RT societies from around the world, including ASTRO, ESTRO, AORTIC, CARO, CACA, FARO, RCR, etc., radiotherapy professionals and patient advocates, including ASTRO’s Director of PR, Jeff White, spoke about the importance of radiotherapy and reinforced the need for a global awareness day. To date, dozens of professional radiotherapy societies have joined the WRAD movement and are planning ways they can get their members involved and raise more awareness about RT. We’ve also secured significant sponsorship from industry partners, but of course the more the better to ensure WRAD’s long term sustainability.

We are busy finalizing the WRAD website, social media channels and resources for participants. We are also planning events and promotion of WRAD at major oncology conferences happening in the months leading up to the September launch.

We ask you to please show your support for this important initiative via the QR code in this article to receive updates and be part of the WRAD family. We hope you and your teams will get involved to make this inaugural WRAD an overwhelming success. Please talk about WRAD, share with your colleagues and think about what your clinic or institution will do to promote WRAD every September 7.

We believe that WRAD’s global reach and inclusive approach position it as a unifying movement to champion the lifesaving and life improving aspect of radiotherapy. Please join us!