QEH reports major savings, improved cancer care with new linear accelerator

Barbados has saved an estimated millions of dollars in overseas treatment costs while expanding access to advanced cancer care, following the introduction of a state-of-the-art linear accelerator at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH).

Since its commissioning last year, more than 2 000 treatment sessions have been completed using the technology, according to medical physicist Corey Drakes.

The linear accelerator (LINAC) delivers image-guided radiation treatment to patients in Barbados, using advanced CT-based planning and daily imaging to ensure each treatment is administered with precision and accuracy.

Drakes noted that since treatments began last November, 120 cancer patients have completed their therapy, describing them as “success stories”.

“During that transition phase, we halted treatment with the Cobalt, and we had to outsource treatment for some of our cancer patients, and that came at a cost. Some of our patients right now are curative patients, the remaining would be palliative and if I had to put a dollar figure to it, I would say, 15 percent palliative patients means 85 percent curative. If we had to outsource treatment for those at $40 000, in seven months we would have saved the government of Barbados almost $5m.”

Head of oncology, Dr Lalitha Sripathi, said the LINAC has enabled the delivery of highly advanced, highly conformal radiation treatments comparable to those available in developed countries.

“We have been able to provide treatments to almost all of the solid tumors, whether it is head and neck tumors, breast tumors, rectal cancers, lung cancers, uterine cancers, cervical cancers, even for pediatric patients. We have been able to provide all the latest radiation treatments. And with the machine that we have, we have been able to give them radiation treatment precisely.”

She explained that modern radiation therapies are being delivered with precise targeting, allowing high-dose radiation to be directed at tumours while minimising damage to surrounding healthy tissue.

“By doing so, obviously that translates to better outcomes in terms of survival, tumor control rate, and decreased side effects, decreased incidence and severity of the side effects. So this is what we are doing with patients, and along with all of this, the treatments are also quite faster. So we are able to treat a good number of patients more efficiently compared to how we used to do before.”

One of the main objectives was to reduce the backlog of patients awaiting treatment while accommodating new cases, Dr Sripathi said, adding that the system has reduced the need for patients to travel overseas.

But she raised concern about the growing number of younger patients being diagnosed with cancer, particularly prostate and colon cancer in people in their 50s and breast cancer in their 20s, and called for strengthened screening programmes.

“This is genuinely very concerning. We definitely need to strengthen our screening programmes, definitely the medical and paramedical staff. And not just that, we need to have more and more health education programs for individuals to make healthy lifestyle changes. It includes everything, healthy lifestyle changes, increased screening and coming for the treatment as soon as possible, because if we detect everything early, then our cure rates, our outcomes, everything would be good compared to having a patient coming to us in an advanced condition where we wouldn’t be able to offer much to the patient. So to me, the most concerning part genuinely is the increasing number of cancer patients and patients being diagnosed at younger ages.”

The QEH officials were speaking on the hospital’s Pulse Radio Show, which focused on ‘Oncology: Precision Treatment, Better Outcomes’.

(JB)