The National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) yesterday announced that, starting next month, it will cover stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), a treatment that can significantly shorten the length of radiotherapy sessions for patients with early-stage lung cancer or non-metastasized liver tumors.
NHIA Medical Affairs Division official Chen Chen-hui (陳真慧) said SBRT is known for its ability to accurately locate tumors with the assistance of image guidance and breathing motion management, before delivering high doses of radiation with pinpoint accuracy.
“Conventional radiotherapy generally requires 30 radiation treatments that are conducted five times a week for approximately six weeks. However, as the SBRT dose is three to 15 times more than the dose delivered by traditional treatment, the patient is subjected to just six radiation treatments, which are carried out once a day at one to three-day intervals, taking less than two weeks to complete,” Chen said.
Chen said research has suggested that SBRT is more effective in treating early-stage lung and liver cancers that have not spread than linear accelerator teletherapy, which is currently covered by the NHIA.
The new policy, which covers the NT$210,000 (US$6,571) cost per six-session SBRT treatment, is applicable for people with a lung tumor smaller than 5cm whose Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status is 2 or lower.
The subsidy is also available to patients with a single liver tumor measuring less than 5cm that is inoperable or cannot be treated with arterial embolization and radio frequency ablation, whose ECOG performance status is 2 or lower, and who are classified as having mild or moderate hepatic impairment (Child-Pugh A-B).
Chen said the plan is expected to cost the NHIA NT$28 million and benefit about 300 patients per year.
Meanwhile, Health Promotion Administration Director-General Chiou Shu-ti (邱淑媞) yesterday reiterated the effectiveness of regular fecal occult blood testing in detecting colorectal cancer in its early stages, one day after the mother of Taiwanese-Japanese singer Makiyo died of the cancer at the age of 64.
“Research has established a link between regular fecal occult blood testing and a dramatic decrease in colorectal cancer death rates by up to 30 percent. The test is effective, non-invasive, painless and does not require any dietary restrictions before sample collection,” Chiou said.
Citing the latest statistics, Chiou said of the 1.2 million people who received the screening test last year, 32,000 were found to have developed colon polyps and more than 2,000 were diagnosed with colorectal cancer.
As colorectal cancer tends to be asymptomatic in the early stages, it has often reached the end stage by the time sufferers notice any unusual changes, such as bloody feces and changes in the size or shape of stools, Chiou said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching