By Lee Kyung-min
A Harvard Medical School assistant professor of surgery asked for his mother, who was diagnosed with stomach cancer in a hospital in Los Angeles, to undergo treatment at Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH) in 2008. The surgical oncologist at a cancer center with the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), the largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and a biomedical research facility located in Boston, asked SNUH Gastric Cancer Center Director Yang Han-kwang if his mother could be treated there.
The mother, who is covered under the highest quality medical insurance in the U.S. came to Korea, and drew media coverage primarily because the MGH oncologist was from the top medical school in the U.S., a country where most doctors wish to go for advanced medical technology training.
The U.S. surgeon received additional training in gastric cancer surgery at SNUH, which performs around 1,000 such surgeries per year, the highest number of treatments, and has the highest success rate. It has the lowest postoperative mortality rate of 0.6 percent, far less than 10 percent in Europe.
The cumulative number of gastric cancer surgeries at the SNUH reached 30,000 this year, which was the largest record for a single institution in the world. A database of over 10,000 gastric cancer patients collected over the last 20 years has been the main reference for the revision of the seventh classification for tumors, nodes and metastases, a staging system to classify the progression of cancer.
Korea's leading experts including Yang continue to increase their presence in the international medical community, now expanding to China, where an increasing number of people have been diagnosed with cancer over the past few years.
According to 2015 Cancer Statistics in China, published in American Cancer Society in 2016, it estimated about 4.3 million cases would have been diagnosed and 2.8 million cancer deaths followed in 2015. Lung cancer was the most common and the leading cause of cancer death followed by stomach, esophageal and liver cancers. The rise in numbers, the report added, has been driven by a fast-aging population and unhealthy lifestyle factors including smoking.
Xu Jia, a surgeon in his 30s at Renji Hospital, Shanghai, China, who completed the advanced clinical training at the gastrointestinal surgery department under Yang for one year starting February 2014, said he had an unforgettable year during which changed his way of thinking on clinical research. “I was deeply impressed by the specialization, standardization and internationalization of this world's first level gastric cancer institute,” he said.
Yang is not only known as a brilliant surgeon, he added, but is also a famous and successful researcher whose substantial participatory work is ongoing in several large-scale randomized controlled trials for gastric cancer treatment.
Yang is the Korean principal investigator of REGATTA, a phase three clinical study designed to address whether removal of the primary cancer is beneficial for patients with distant metastases. REGATTA is the first to address the benefit of primary cancer removal before chemotherapy as a first-line treatment for advanced gastric cancer. “Apart from the high-volume clinical activity, the SNUH Gastric Cancer Center also has played a world-leading role by heading several important clinical trials including KLASS study, Classic study, REGATTA study, TOGA, all of which Yang is an investigator of.”
According to data from the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), Korea provides high-quality medical services by using state-of-the-art equipment for cancer treatment including proton therapy in which protons are used to selectively attack cancer cells to minimize normal-tissue damage and harmful side effects. The therapy is only available at Korea's National Cancer Center as well as 28 other hospitals in the world. An increasing number of foreign cancer patients continue to visit Korea as the treatment costs are as low as 20 percent of that in the U.S.
The Cyber Knife and Gamma Knife are among the most advanced medical devices that selectively track and remove cancer tissue without an invasive surgical operation, the treatment cost of which is about a third of that in the U.S.
Korea is also famous for Da Vinci Surgery, or minimally-invasive robotic surgery. Korean hospitals run robotic surgery training centers where a large number of foreign doctors visit to observe and learn the technological advancements.
University hospitals and high-level general hospitals including 12 government-designated local cancer centers provide the world's top cancer treatments by providing one-stop system of full support for prevention, examination, treatment, rehabilitation and aftercare.
The government is continuing efforts to guarantee safety and convenience for foreign patients through implementation of the Korean Accreditation Program for Hospitals Serving Foreign Patients (KAHF) whose recognition is effective for two years. The stringent standards are set and overseen by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and jointly run by the KHIDI and the Korea Institute for Healthcare Accreditation.
Last year, of the 31 medical institutions that applied, only five Gachon University Gil Medical Center, Inha University Hospital, HanGil Eye Hospital, JK Plastic Surgery Center, and CHA Fertility Center Seoul Station were accredited. All, except for JK Plastic Surgery Center and CHA Fertility Center, are located in Incheon. Under the program, medical institutions are evaluated on up to 130 standards including whether they have “competent medical coordinators,” who can fully explain in detail their services before, during and after treatments in a language that patients can understand.
The program also evaluates whether medical institutions have measures to prevent medical disputes, and employ arbitration following possible dissatisfactory treatment. Other criteria include whether they have infection control measures, emergency response measures, as well as certified anesthetists, important indications of whether medical institutions maintain services that meet patients' expectations of safety.
The measures reflect foreign patients' varying needs depending on their countries of origin including cultural differences, languages and all other sensitive aspects while staying in Korea. “By implementing this program, and having medical institutions meet the requirements, the government is seeking to set a new standard of what medical institutions should prioritize when treating foreign patients,” a KHIDI official said.
Experts in cancer treatment from both Korea and China will speak at special sessions at the “Forum for Korea-China Collaboration on Cancer Control” at 9:30 a.m. in the Intercontinental Seoul COEX, southern Seoul, May 9. The sessions including one on colorectal cancer are part of Medical Korea 2018, an annual event organized by the health ministry and the KHIDI. The three day event will end on May 11. More information can be found at
The national cancer centers of Korea and China have maintained close cooperation since the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding in 2010. The two countries have held cancer management workshops every year since 2013. Japan joined the workshops in March.