Re: " Cancer patients lose scanner access "

[John Jacobus <crispy_bird@YAHOO.COM>]

In this country the use of PET/CT scanners is

increasing due to Medicare reimbursements.  If you

cannot diagnosis and stage cancers, you are not doing

"quality medicine."



--- "Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj@AECL.CA> wrote:

> 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.

> 

> _______________________________________________

> cdn-nucl-l mailing list

> cdn-nucl-l@mailman.McMaster.CA

>

http://mailman.McMaster.CA/mailman/listinfo/cdn-nucl-l

> 





=====

+++++++++++++++++++

"We cannot escape danger, or the fear of danger, by crawling into bed and pulling the covers over our heads."

-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt



-- John

John Jacobus, MS

Certified Health Physicist

e-mail:  crispy_bird@yahoo.com





	

		

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