" Cancer patients lose scanner access "

["Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj@AECL.CA>]

FW from another list, FYI....



Jaro 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^



Cancer Patients Lose Scanner Access



The London Free Press, Thu 06 May 2004, By John Miner, Free Press Health

Reporter



London cancer patients are losing access to a high-tech imaging machine that

can pinpoint tumours often missed by older technologies.



"They are shutting us down," Dr. Jean-Luc Urbain, citywide head of nuclear

medicine, said yesterday. "I feel terrible, just terrible."



Urbain had hoped to keep the so-called PET/CT scanner operating at St.

Joseph's Health Care for at least three more months after Ontario's cancer

agency decided it wouldn't pay the costs of operating the machine, one of

only eight in Canada.



London doctors were able to obtain limited financing by tapping Health

Canada's Special Access Program.



That program paid for the radioactive substance injected into patients to

allow the scanner to discover tumours.



The injections cost $1,100 a patient.



But last week, the hospital was told it could no longer use the federal

program, Urbain said.



That means the PET/CT scanner at St. Joseph's can only be used for research,

he said. There had been a three-month waiting list for scans.



"This is very frustrating, very frustrating," said Dr. William Pavlosky,

who's with St. Joe's department of nuclear medicine.



"We know what this technology can do and we are just not allowed to use it,"

he said.



Developed in 1995, the PET/CT is actually a combination of two machines,

using positron emission tomography (PET) and computerized tomography (CT).



With it, doctors can determine whether a growth actually is cancerous,

Pavlosky said.



In some cases, the scanner in London has found tumours doctors missed,

resulting in treatment changes. "We are finding disease where disease was

never suspected," said Pavlosky.



It also has pinpointed tumours, leading to life-saving surgery.



Cancer Care Ontario has classified the machine as experimental and ordered

clinical trials.



"There is not a lot of scientific research of how effective PET is in

diagnosing cancer," Karen Ramlall, an agency spokesperson, said last week.



It's also expensive, and Cancer Care Ontario has to be satisfied there's

solid scientific evidence to justify using it, amid rising demands on

limited health resources, she said.



Urbain labelled the trials "bogus," saying the technology has already been

proven in other countries.



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