Radiotherapy: underused weapon against cancer
Keum Ki-chang stands next to a tomotherapy machine, which enables doctors to treat cancer patients with image-guided intensity modulated radiotherapy. Severance Hospital plans to set up the system for particle therapy using carbon ions by 2020. /Courtesy of Hong So-hyun‘Patients need to be better informed about treatment options’By Jung Min-ho, Kim Eil-chulSix years ago, a patient with a tricky form of cancer visited Severance Hospital. A tumor was growing fast behind his eye, not far from his delicate optic nerve.After considering the tumor’s location, radiation oncologist Keum Ki-chang came to the conclusion that tomotherapy, an image-guided intensity-modulated radiation therapy, would work best for the patient, so he went for it.After receiving tomotherapy as well as drug treatment for several months, the patient fully recovered. “He has not experienced any side effects since and now looks healthy as if he was never ill,” Keum, vice director of Yonsei Cancer Center, said in an interview.However, his fate would have been very different if he had t
Aug 7, 2016
