Why Choose Treatment Abroad?

Spending six- to eight-weeks anywhere away from home can be taxing. Yet because there are so few Proton treatment facilties in North America, patients wanting Proton therapy almost invariably must travel somewhere far from home, and live for up to two months in rental accommodation, to receive treatment. So what sort of patient might find the Natioanl Cancer Center (NCC)in Seoul, South Korea an appealing destination option?

The most obvious appeal is cost. The fact that the NCC offers the world's lowest-cost proton treatment program for prostate cancer. That would make the NCC a good option for North American patients without health insurance. Or patients whose insurance won't pay for proton treatment. Or whose insurers refuse to authorize payment despite the treatment being an approved procedure. (Some insurers won't approve payment for PBT until other, cheaper treatments have been tried and failed.)

Another major attraction is immediate access to treatment. At the six proton radiation facilities in North America, patients often must wait three months or more to enter treatment -- if they are accepted at all. Demand exceeds treatment capacity. And some U.S. proton facilities severely restrict the number of prostate patients they accepted, in order to give priority to patients with cancers untreatable in other ways.

By contrast, access to treatment at the NCC is immediate. Once the NCC has the opportunity to examine a patient's medical records and confirm proton radiation is appropriate, treatment can begin as soon as a patient gets to Seoul and completes the patient enrollment and treatment planning process.

Immediate access to treatment could prove decisive for men diagnosed with very aggressive forms of prostate cancer, but which show no signs yet of having spread beyond the prostate.

I hope the information about NCC over the last several days has been helpful to you. Don't hesitate to contact them to seek more information here.

Have a good Wednesday.
Blessings,
Rick