on Dec 1st, 2006I.M.R.T The Prostate Train to Riches
Some people will do anything for a buck. Last week, the New York Times wrote about how doctors are bailing on their practices in order to become investment banker consultants. The payoff, apparently, is much sweeter and requires less time. I mean really, who wants to work a whole lifetime to earn enough to live comfortably AND help people, when you can work a few short years and retire super rich.
Well, some doctors have figured out that by using a new technology to fight prostate cancer, they don’t need to leave their practice to get rich. All hail human greed.
The nearly 240,000 men in the United States who will learn they have prostate cancer this year have one more thing to worry about: Are their doctors making treatment decisions on the basis of money as much as medicine? Among several widely used treatments for prostate cancer, one stands out for its profit potential. The approach, a radiation therapy known as I.M.R.T., can mean reimbursement of $47,000 or more a patient.
That is many times the fees that urologists make on other accepted treatments for the disease, which include surgery and radioactive seed implants. And it may help explain why urologists have started buying multimillion-dollar I.M.R.T. equipment and software, and why many more are investigating it as a way to increase their incomes.
Profit and Questions on Prostate Cancer Therapy
By STEPHANIE SAUL
New York Times, December 1, 2006
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Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT)
Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) is an advanced mode of high-precision radiotherapy that utilizes computer-controlled x-ray accelerators to deliver precise radiation doses to a malignant tumor or specific areas within the tumor. The radiation dose is designed to conform to the three-dimensional (3-D) shape of the tumor by modulating—or controlling—the intensity of the radiation beam to focus a higher radiation dose to the tumor while minimizing radiation exposure to surrounding normal tissues. Treatment is carefully planned by using 3-D computed tomography (CT) images of the patient in conjunction with computerized dose calculations to determine the dose intensity pattern that will best conform to the tumor shape.