The membership of the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) Standards of Practice Committee represents experts in a broad spectrum of interventional procedures from the private and academic sectors of medicine. Generally, Standards of Practice Committee members dedicate the vast majority of their professional time to performing interventional procedures; as such, they represent a valid broad expert constituency of the subject matter under consideration for standards production.Technical documents specifying the exact consensus and literature review methodologies as well as the institutional affiliations and professional credentials of the authors of this document are available upon request from SIR, 3975 Fair Ridge Dr., Suite 400 N., Fairfax, VA 22033. METHODOLOGYSIR produces its Standards of Practice documents using the following process. Standards documents of relevance and timeliness are conceptualized by the Standards of Practice Committee members. A recognized expert is identified to serve as the principal author for the standard. Additional authors may be assigned dependent upon the magnitude of the project.An in-depth literature search is performed using electronic medical literature databases. Then, a critical review of peer-reviewed articles is performed with regard to the study methodology, results, and conclusions. The qualitative weight of these articles is assembled into an evidence table, which is used to write the document such that it contains evidence-based data with respect to content, rates, and thresholds (Fig E1 and Table E1, available online at www.jvir.org).When the evidence of literature is weak, conflicting, or contradictory, consensus for the parameter is reached by a minimum of 12 Standards of Practice Committee members using a modified Delphi consensus method (Appendix A). For purposes of these documents, consensus is defined as 80% Delphi participant agreement on a value or parameter.The draft document is critically reviewed by the Standards of Practice Committee members by telephone conference calling or face-to-face meeting. The finalized draft from the Committee is sent to the SIR membership for further input/criticism during a 30-day comment period. These comments are discussed by the Standards of Practice Committee, and appropriate revisions are made to create the finished standards document. Prior to its publication, the document is endorsed by the SIR Executive Council.

There is currently no consensus regarding preferred clinical outcome measures following image-guided tumor ablation or clear definitions of oncologic end points. This consensus document proposes standardized definitions for a broad range of oncologic outcome measures with recommendations on how to uniformly document, analyze, and report outcomes. The initiative was coordinated by the Society of Interventional Oncology in collaboration with the Definition for the Assessment of Time-to-Event End Points in Cancer Trials, or DATECAN, group. According to predefined criteria, based on experience with clinical trials, an international panel of 62 experts convened. Recommendations were developed using the validated three-step modified Delphi consensus method. Consensus was reached on when to assess outcomes per patient, per session, or per tumor; on starting and ending time and survival time definitions; and on time-to-event end points. Although no consensus was reached on the preferred classification system to report complications, quality of life, and health economics issues, the panel did agree on using the most recent version of a validated patient-reported outcome questionnaire. This article provides a framework of key opinion leader recommendations with the intent to facilitate a clear interpretation of results and standardize worldwide communication. Widespread adoption will improve reproducibility, allow for accurate comparisons, and avoid misinterpretations in the field of interventional oncology research.

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