Advances in radiotherapy: Disease control rates, patient survival times increase

 

Cancer treatment is a multimodal treatment including radiation therapy, surgery, chemotherapy... Each case is consulted by interdisciplinary to come up with the most effective regimen. With the advancements in the field of radiation therapy (full machine system) the quality of treatment is far superior. Specifically, the rate of disease control, prolonging the patient's survival time increased. With nasopharyngeal cancer, 20 years ago, the 5-year survival rate was only 33%, but now it has increased to 65%. Or like lung cancer, the average patient lived only 1 year before, now 2 years...

Modern radiotherapy machine on par with the world

Sharing with the press on the sidelines of the National Conference "Advances in Radiation Oncology" held at K Hospital last weekend, Assoc. Ngo Thanh Tung, Director of the National Center for Radiation Therapy, Head of the Department of Radiation 1, K Hospital, said that the hospital currently has 8 radiotherapy machines, but it is still lacking compared to actual needs. On average, about 800-900 patients have to undergo radiation therapy every day, so the medical staff and machines operate almost 24/24h. “According to the recommendation, one machine per day only provides radiation therapy for 40-60 patients, while we regularly run on 200 patients per day. To be able to meet the needs of radiation therapy, there must be 1 radiotherapy machine / 1 million people” - Assoc. Ngo Thanh Tung said.

According to Assoc.Prof.Dr. Ngo Thanh Tung, cancer treatment is a multimodal treatment including radiation therapy, surgery, chemotherapy... Each case is consulted interdisciplinary to give the most effective regimen.

Assoc.Prof.Dr. Le Van Quang, Director of K Hospital also added that out of the 8 radiotherapy machines that K Hospital is using for treatment, there are accelerators, breathing radiation therapy, and Gamma knife. one of the most modern generation of radiotherapy machines in the region and on par with the world for more effective treatment and fewer complications. “However, the current number of radiotherapy machines is still not enough to meet the needs of treatment, although the condition of patients having to receive radiation at night has decreased compared to before, there are still many radiation cases lasting up to 22 hours. Therefore, in the near future, the hospital will have to buy new machines, especially for heavy-particle and proton-particle radiation therapy," said the director of K Hospital.

Radiation therapy for patients at K Hospital.

Cancer treatment: Radiation therapy contributes about 50%.

Prof. Dr. Tran Van Thuan, Deputy Minister of Health shared: Cancer is becoming a big burden in countries around the world, especially in poor countries and developing countries. In Vietnam, the burden of cancer is increasing across the country and requires special attention from the whole society. Besides the achievements, the oncology specialty of Vietnam still faces many difficulties. Most people with cancer come for examination and treatment at a late stage, so treatment is increasingly difficult and expensive (about 70%).

Cancer prevention is still a big challenge for the world's medicine, not only requires modern and up-to-date professional knowledge and techniques of doctors, but also requires the the efforts of the patient himself, his family, and the positive support from society and the community.

Deputy Minister Tran Van Thuan also said that from the first facility was the Indochinese Curie Institute (precursor of K Hospital) established in 1923, where scientist Marie Curie once set foot and brought the first radium tubes. located here as a radiation treatment facility in Indochina. Up to now, across the country, there are 42 departments and centers with radiation therapy equipment with a total of 75 generations of accelerated radiation therapy machines.

“Some large centers can deploy modern radiotherapy techniques such as: Tumor-based radiotherapy (3D-CRT); dose-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT); image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT); arc volume modulated radiotherapy (VMAT); Breathing controlled radiation therapy (ABC), Gamma knife... Deploying multimodal treatment combination, especially chemotherapy and radiation therapy in many types of cancer with the aim of preserving organs, improving quality quality of life for patients and at the same time increase disease control as well as survival time after treatment" - Deputy Minister of Health emphasized.

Along with equipment, the human resource team is also growing stronger and more specialized and professional with 226 radiation therapists, 156 physiotherapy engineers and 266 radiotherapy machine operating technicians nationwide. see the continuous development of radiotherapy in Vietnam. Many fairy tales in everyday life have been written from hospitals, centers, and oncology departments across the country.

Radiation therapy is one of the three classic treatment methods (surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy) increasingly showing an indispensable importance in the treatment of cancer. The advantage of radiation therapy is that there are almost no contraindications and can be applied to all stages of the disease, including for the purpose of radical treatment to palliative treatment for terminal cancer. Currently, it is estimated that in general cancer treatment, radiation therapy contributes about 50%.