The Taipei Veterans General Hospital (TVGH) yesterday held an unveiling ceremony for its new Therapeutic and Research Center of Pancreatic Cancer, in which a 74-year-old patient talked about his “painless” experience undergoing heavy ion therapy to treat advanced pancreatic cancer.
The man, surnamed Lee (李), said that in February he started experiencing abdominal pain and losing weight in February. He visited a clinic, which said he had gastroesophageal reflux.
After five visits, the clinic referred him to TVGH, where he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which had invaded his superior mesenteric artery and vein.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
Learning that he had cancer, Lee said he became anxious and unhappy at the thought of the painful treatment and possibly having to leave his family behind.
He agreed to undergo a combination of chemotherapy and heavy ion therapy at the hospital, and found the latter to be painless.
Taiwan has a pancreatic cancer incidence rate of 4.64 per 100,000 men and 3.21 per 100,000 women, center director Shyr Yi-ming (石宜銘) said.
Pancreatic cancer is the seventh-leading cause of death by cancer in Taiwan, but what causes the disease remains unclear, Shyr said.
Pancreaticoduodenectomy, also known as the Whipple procedure, is the most common type of surgery performed to remove tumors in the pancreas, but as pancreatic cancer is not easy to detect, it is often diagnosed at an advanced stage, he said.
Surgery is also hard to perform on patients with Lee’s condition — locally advanced pancreatic cancer that has invaded the superior mesenteric artery and vein, he added.
However, after undergoing heavy ion therapy, Lee’s tumor, 4cm in diameter, shrank and was nearly invisible, allowing doctors to perform the Whipple procedure in June, Shyr said.
Lee’s CA19-9 serum level — a tumor marker to detect pancreatic cancer — dropped from 219 to 12.4U/mL, within the normal range of 0 to 27U/mL, he added.
Compared with conventional beam or proton therapy, heavy ion radiation can deliver a beam that is more precise and potent, and focused only on the cancer, which produces less side effects on normal tissues, involves no incision and thus no pain, making it suitable for elderly patients, he said.
For people with advanced pancreatic cancer, the combination of chemotherapy and heavy ion therapy can first help shrink the size of the tumor, allowing them to receive a Whipple procedure, raising their chances of survival, the hospital said.
TVGH superintendent Chen Wei-ming (陳威明) said that the cost of heavy ion therapy is relatively high and many might not be able to afford the treatment.
However, to help economically disadvantaged people, the hospital sets a quota each year to help them receive the treatment for free, Chen said.
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