Taipei Veterans General Hospital (TVGH) yesterday unveiled the nation’s first heavy ion therapy center, saying 2 percent of its treatment capacity would be reserved for socially disadvantaged people.
The center cost NT$4.5 billion (US$146.04 million), the hospital said.
The hospital launched its heavy particle cancer treatment center project in 2009, and began constructing the center in 2019, hospital superintendent Chen Wei-ming (陳威明) said.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
With the help of a Japanese technical team, the hospital completed the center in a record 15 months, Chen said, adding that the installation and verification of equipment was completed five months afterward.
It is the 14th operating heavy ion therapy center in the world and began treating patients at noon yesterday.
There are many treatment methods for cancer such as surgery, chemotherapy, medication therapy, immunotherapy and radiation therapy, Chen said.
Heavy ion therapy is an advanced form of radiation therapy, he said.
It uses carbon ions which are 12 times heavier than protons and can deliver more radiation to tumors with high precision, causing more damage to cancerous cells, he said.
The therapy has a shorter treatment course, is painless and allows patients to return to their normal lives faster than other treatments, Chen said.
Many countries covered by the government’s New Southbound Policy have expressed an interest in the center, he said.
The Mayo Clinic in the US has sent experts to the hospital three times and signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) last month, Chen said.
The hospital has also signed an MOU with the Taiwan Space Agency, because the center can assist in the radiation protection verification of space components, he said.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said the opening of the center also marks an important milestone in medical cooperation between Taiwan and Japan.
Previously, people in Taiwan who needed heavy ion therapy had to travel to Japan, but now they can receive treatment in Taiwan, while people in other countries can also visit the nation for treatment, she said.
The center is “the last piece of the puzzle” in Taiwan’s precision cancer radiation therapy, and hopefully medical centers nationwide would form a “cancer radiation therapy national team” to provide care to cancer patients and enhance Taiwan’s medical competitiveness globally, Tsai said.
She also thanked the companies that made donations to help build the center.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
MULTIPRONGED APPROACH: China has sought to pressure Palau across a number of fronts, but the island nation has staunchly resisted overtures to ditch Taiwan Palau has been firm in backing Taiwan despite Chinese pressure that uses tourism economics, cyberattacks and criminal infiltration as tools to threaten the Pacific ally into renouncing its recognition of Taiwan as a sovereign state. The Presidential Office yesterday announced that Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) would visit Palau from Saturday to Wednesday next week at the invitation of Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr. Whipps in April said in an interview that China had outspokenly asked Palau to “denounce Taiwan.” “And we have said: ‘We have no enemies, but nobody tells us who our friends are,’” he said. Whipps has told reporters multiple times
RSS