MOULTRIE — New equipment and new procedures are greatly increasing cancer patients’ survival rates, a radiation oncologist at Archbold Medical Center in Thomasville told the Moultrie Kiwanis Club Thursday.
Dr. Steve Johnson, a radiation oncologist at Archbold’s Lewis Hall Singletary Oncology Center, said Archbold offers a wide variety of services for cancer patients and cancer treatment. He said the hospital offers many programs not available at university hospitals, primarily because it does not deal with the bureaucracy many universities deal with, allowing the hospital to offer cutting-edge technology.
“We’ve been very fortunate to pick up new programs while they’re still cutting edge,” Johnson said.
The oncology center will soon be adding a $3.5 million Trilogy device, which Johnson said treats cancer through stereostatic body radiation. It will allow oncologists to treat tumors in the body with fewer complications, fewer doses and improved control rates, increasing survival rates.
“Any time you can cut down on the side effects and increase cure rates,” Johnson said, “it’s a good thing.”
Another treatment technique in use is prostate seed implants and mammosites, or breast seed implants, Johnson said. The process puts several radioactive pellets into a male prostate or woman’s breast cancer site, and they provide permanent low doses of radiation. The procedure has maxed-out cure rates of prostate cancer, he said, and there has been no documented recurrence of breast cancer in women with seed implants.
A gamma knife has proven to be very successful for patients with brain tumors, Johnson said. The gamma knife performs surgery without a knife with an accuracy of 0.1 millimeters, and it has an effective range between 80 percent and 90 percent, which is a higher rate than traditional surgery.
Following his discussion of cancer treatment techniques, Johnson was asked about a variety of topics, including health care reform, by Kiwanis members. Johnson said the greatest effect health care reform will have on hospitals is if private insurance is affected, which pays much higher reimbursements to hospitals.
“Hopefully the powers that be will be smart enough to not put good hospitals out of business,” Johnson said.
Despite what others may have speculated, Johnson said the most important health care needs for reform are on pre-existing conditions and helping people who cannot afford medication. Medical care will always be available, he said, and no one will ever be turned away for treatment from an emergency room or a doctor’s office. He said doctors treat the patient’s conditions and try to heal them, whether they have nothing or are very wealthy.
Johnson said it is also difficult to trust what people report or discuss related to health care. He believes everyone has an agenda in reporting what is being done.
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