consensus statements

Approval Process of ABS Consensus Statements

In order to provide ABS members updates on standard brachytherapy management through the development of updated and/or new ABS consensus statements. We have updated our approval process of Consensus Statements.

The ABS Board of Directors (BOD) will select the topic, and senior and junior authors. The senior author will need to provide a list of publications and is required to have published on the topic of interest in the last 5 years. All proposed ABS consensus statements will include a summary paragraph detailing the subject matter and timeline. The ABS BOD requires that all authors who participate in these consensus statements are ABS members. It is recognized that contributing authors from other specialties will participate and are not required to be ABS members. If the proposed consensus statement is an update, the authors will need to reference the previous guidelines and summarize changes ( see attachment for a list of previous guidelines/statements). All ABS members will be notified through the ABS Blast of the proposed consensus statement for other interested co-authors to apply; a maximum of 10 authors will be selected. It is strongly encouraged that all authors, should have published or presented on the subject matter in the last 5 years. The timeline below details the process. Any controversies regarding authorship, subject content or other issues will be resolved by the BOD consensus subcommittee.

Timeline Process:

  1. The ABS BOD will select the topic, junior and senior authors.  ABS BOD will review the proposal for initial approval.  Topics from non-board members will also be considered with ABS BOD approval.
  2. Notification to the ABS membership through the ABS Blast to identify the other 8 co-authors.
  3. Once final authorship is approved by the ABS BOD consensus sub-committee, the final document should be completed in 6 months and submitted to the President-elect or President for ABS BOD peer review by 2 members.
  4. Once the document is reviewed and approved by the ABS BOD, the document will be posted for “public comment” by the ABS membership for 30 days.
  5. Once the manuscript has been reviewed with additional edits incorporated, the authors will submit to the Journal of Brachytherapy within 30 days.

Please e-mail your proposal and consensus document once done to Dan Petereit, President-Elect or Peter Orio, President.

Please e-mail us if you have any questions on the new approval process. The goal is to create a transparent process to maximize engagement of ABS members.

Read the Current Guidelines:
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Read the Current Guidelines