Hospitals Look to a Nuclear Tool to Fight Cancer

The feed points us to a NYTimes article about hospitals using particle accelerators to treat cancer. While expensive, proponents say that the proton beams generated by the accelerators are more precise than conventional X-ray radiation therapy. This results in fewer side effects and reduced irradiation of surrounding tissue. The technology's critics say that the cost is not justified by a measurable increase in the level of care given to the patients. Nevertheless, this is an excellent example of "pure scientific research" leading to a useful, unrelated technique. From the NYTimes: "Tumors in or near the eye, for instance, can be eradicated by protons without destroying vision or irradiating the brain. Protons are also valuable for treating tumors in brains, necks and spines, and tumors in children, who are especially sensitive to the side effects of radiation."

Comments

Re:private health care will strangle this?

[Anonymous Coward]

It does say so in the article:

"Debbie Hirst, 56, from Carbis Bay, wants to pay privately for the breast cancer drug Avastin. But she has been told that if she starts taking it privately her free treatment on the NHS will end."

Apparently, if it is discovered that she has paid for the drug privately, she would no longer receive any free treatment in the NHS as it quite clearly says here. I would assume that whether she takes the drug in the UK or whether she jumps on the Eurostar to France to take it before going back doesn't matter. My mistake though, I thought they would reclaim the costs spent so far, which they would clearly not, but she would have to shell out for bed space, tests and cancer drug cocktail by the night in the future, and those expenses would clearly dwarf that of a single drug. So house would go in any case.

Apparently, as the article states, because allowing payment for drugs could have the effect of creating a system whereby some patients could get the same free health care as everyone else and then pay for additional drugs out of their own pocket, which would have the effect of relegating the non-payers to a lower class of person.

That's the legalities of the situation anyway - whether they would actually start expensing her by the hour as they promise is difficult to say, some rules are just made for deterence.