BAGUIO CITY – The health department is eying the put up of at least one photon beam therapy facility in the country to provide improved survivorship and effective and efficient cancer treatment, especially for breast cancer patients.
Speaking during the first Think Pink Award on Outstanding Stories on Breast Cancer held at the Century Park Hotel in Manila, Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said that the proposed photon beam therapy is one of the components of the country’s cancer center awaiting the provision of the needed funds for its realization that will provide better treatment for breast cancer patients in the future.
He claimed that photon beam therapy is far better because it targets the cancer cells in the breast, brain or heart but does not endanger the cells around it making it a safe treatment.
Photon beam radiation therapy is a type of radiation therapy that uses x-rays or gamma rays that come from a special machine called a linear accelerator. The radiation dose is delivered at the surface of the body and goes into the tumor and through the body. It eventually kills the cancer cells but spares the other cells around it.
The health official disclosed that the initial cost of the photon beam therapy would be around $65,000 but the effectiveness of the treatment will be guaranteed and it will be readily available in the country once his proposal will be provided with the required funding support.
Herbosa pointed out that in the long term, the photon beam therapy would become a public sector comparator like what happened to the establishment of the Philippine Heart Center that paved the way for open heart surgery to be performed in the country instead of heart patients going overseas to get the said type of surgery.
According to him, prior to the establishment of the Philippine Heart Center, patients that are recommended to undergo open heart surgery will have to go to the Texas Heart Institute in Dallas or Stanford just to avail of the surgery where doctors compute their transportation cost among others and include the same in their professional fee that made such surgery too expensive at that time.
Aside from the put up of the photon beam therapy, Herbosa is also targeting the put up of some 29 linear accelerators that will be added to the 15 existing ones to help in improving early breast cancer screening and detection.
He stipulated that Singapore has already two photon beam therapy facilities for a population of more than 6 million while for the Philippines, it has yet to establish its own facility with a population of more than 113 million.
Ironically, Secretary Herbosa underscored that only one percent of Filipino women are diagnosed for stage 1 or stage 2 breast cancer and over 12,000 women die annually because of breast cancer.
Based on his own experience as a doctor at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH), many women, especially from the lower socio-economic strata, visit the health facility and are diagnosed for stage 2 breast cancer but because of the long queues, their situation worsen and by the time they are scheduled for their mastectomy, they are already in stage 3 or stage 4 breast cancer.
“We even tried to shorten the queues with the conduct of surgical missions but it was difficult to do so,’ he added.
Herbosa commended the Philippine Press Institute, Novartis, ICANSERVE foundation and the fellows that actively participated in the fellowship on Outstanding Stories on Breast Cancer because there are a lot of stories on cancer that should be told rather than dealing with numbers for people to understand the intricacies of their illness.
The Secretary supported the framework on education, early screening, early detection, early diagnosis and early treatment to help address the existing gaps that will pave the way for disease prevention among the populace.
One of Herbosa’s salient agenda is focused on health promotion and disease prevention, acute and urgent care and taking care of the Filipino women.
“If we are able to take care of the women, they will be able to take care of their spouse, children and their parents and surely, we will have a healthy family,” Secretary Herbosa stressed. By Dexter A. See
