Thank God for the OCF news feed. I just caught up on it and while it is only an "opinion" piece from NYT about IMPT entitled: It Costs More but is it worth it?
So I will mention the caveats below when I discuss this with my RO late this afternoon. I've been so insistent in questioning my doctors the last 5 years about "how do you know this? ; your clinical experience? an article? a medical salesperson? studies?.
[quote]The higher price would be worth it if proton beam therapy cured more people or significantly reduced side effects. But there is no evidence showing that this is true, except for a handful of rare pediatric cancers, like brain and spinal cord cancer... To generate sufficient revenue, proton beam facilities need to treat patients with other types of cancer. Consequently, they have been promoted for patients with lung, esophageal, breast, head and neck cancers. But the biggest target by far has been prostate cancer, diagnosed in nearly a quarter of a million men each year.
There is no convincing evidence that proton beam therapy is as good as � much less better than � cheaper types of radiation for any one of these cancers. There has not been a single randomized trial, only small, short-term studies.[/quote]
As much as I try to keep up on the research, Brian does it all for us on the OCF News Feed. Like the Washington Post ad says: [quote]OCF news, if you don't get it, you don't get it[/quote]
Charm