America Is a Target for Protons
NCC also hosted a forum of lectures focused on proton therapy and attended by about 75 hospital staff, students, guests and press from Korea, China, Japan, and the U.S. Speakers included clinicians, organization heads, and marketing people.
Korea believes that the U.S., with its high prevalence of prostate cancer (less common among Asian men), is a perfect fit for a package that costs a patient $48,000 and includes airfare, lodging, daily ground transportation to and from the hospital (about 40 minutes from the center of Seoul), and other perks. Treatment includes international coordination; consultation; treatment planning; production of the customized aperture and compensator, which target proton radiation to the specific tumor site; and proton beam therapy treatment, an advanced form of radiation therapy, available at just seven U.S. centers.
"If [patients are] fit for a long trip, they're usually fit for treatment because they don't get sick from this treatment," said radiation oncologist Dr. Kwan H. Cho. Dr. Cho, like many of the NCC staff had medical training in the U.S. as well as Korea. "There are a lot of patients in the United States. We have two [rotating] gantry rooms and they don't have to wait."
Radiation oncologist
Dr. Kwan H. Cho
was trained in Korea
and the U.S.
What type of patient will take Korea up on this offer?
"Probably a handful of prostate cancer patients, at first, will consider this a unique travel opportunity and a potentially enlightening experience to be treated in a foreign country for eight or nine weeks while limiting their out-of-pocket medical costs. They'll need to be confident their treatment will be handled by experienced proton physicians at a world-class proton center. They'll want to check all that out first. Then, it will be up to those early on patients to spread the positive word around," said Leonard Arzt, executive director of the National Association for Proton Therapy, one of the guests in Seoul. He noted, "Many times, because prostate patients have a number of options in the U.S., the choice of where to get proton therapy often comes down to lifestyle. Patients may go to a center near where a relative lives, to play golf, go to the beach, or use the time to work."
