Multidisciplinary tumour boards
Regular meetings where surgeons, oncologists, radiologists, pathologists and others review each patient's case together and agree a plan; mandatory in many countries and associated with more guideline-concordant care.
Multidisciplinary team (MDT) meetings became mandatory in the UK after the Calman-Hine report (1995) and are required for accreditation by the ACoS Commission on Cancer, OECI and German certified centres. Observational evidence links MDT review to changed diagnoses or plans in 10-30% of cases, better staging completeness, higher guideline adherence and, in some cohorts, improved survival (e.g. colorectal, lung, oesophageal), though randomised evidence is lacking. Molecular tumour boards (since ~2012) interpret genomic profiling; virtual and regional MDTs extend expertise to smaller hospitals; AI-assisted case preparation and decision support (e.g. Watson for Oncology, later withdrawn) have been tested. Challenges: time cost, variable quality, patient absence from discussion.
How it works
Structured, prospective case review by all relevant specialties with the full dataset (imaging, pathology, molecular, comorbidity) to produce a consensus, guideline-referenced recommendation before treatment starts.
- Changes management in a meaningful minority
- Improves staging and guideline adherence
- Molecular tumour boards make genomics actionable
- No randomised evidence of survival benefit
- Time-consuming; variable case preparation
- Patient preferences may be under-represented
Latest papers
topQuery for this technology: (TITLE:"Multidisciplinary tumour boards" OR ABSTRACT:"Multidisciplinary tumour boards") AND (cancer OR tumor OR tumour OR oncology OR carcinoma OR lymphoma OR leukemia OR leukaemia OR myeloma OR sarcoma OR melanoma OR glioma). Results are unfiltered search hits about Multidisciplinary tumour boards, not a curated reading list.
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