Final decision: The Government, obliged to settle the stereotactic radiotherapy in Romania – News from Mures, News Targu mures

Dr. Adrian Udrea: “If they do not take the measures to protect the lives of oncology patients, we will request forced execution”

Medisprof, the largest private oncology hospital in western Romania, obtained a settlement in court for stereotactic radiotherapy in our country. A notification has already been sent to the Government of Romania, which is in a position to enforce the court decision by which it was obliged to include the stereotactic radiotherapy treatment within the “National Oncology Program”. At the moment, the Romanian state sends patients abroad to benefit from this therapy for free, but they have to bear the costs if they choose to be treated at home, in the country!

Almost a year and a half since it requested in court the settlement of stereotactic radiotherapy in Romania for oncology patients, Medisprof, the largest private oncology hospital in western Romania, won the case before the Romanian Government.

“Medisprof also acted in court with the National Insurance House and the Ministry of Health, but although we showed that the current regulation blatantly violates the right to life of oncology patients, the two institutions decided to appeal and won the case in the last instance. Basically, they won a case against Romanian patients! However, we have a final judgment against the Government of Romania and we have already sent a notice of execution of the judgment. The National Health Programs, of which the is a part, are approved by the Government of Romania through a Government decision, so the institution is able to implement the decision. Through the notification, we gave them a term in which to voluntarily execute the decision, and if they do not take the necessary measures to protect the lives of oncological patients, we will ask the competent bodies to help us with the forced execution”, said Dr. Adrian Udrea, primary oncology doctor.

Since the beginning of this year, thousands of patients have signed the public petition asking the authorities to provide oncology patients with treatments like in Western Europe, in our country. At the moment, the treatment is settled only for patients who go to do it outside the country, given that a sequence of stereotactic radiotherapy can cost between 3,000 and 5,000 euros abroad.

30% of patients who received stereotactic radiotherapy had lung cancer

Stereotactic radiotherapy is a highly precise radiotherapy technique that uses high doses of radiation in a small number of sessions (one to five sessions). It is most frequently used for the curative treatment of tumors diagnosed in early stages (lung, prostate, pancreas, liver), but also for situations of metastatic disease (oligometastatic to be exact – a number of up to 5 metastases): brain, lung metastases , bone, liver, adrenal gland, adenopathies. All cases of stereotactic pulmonary and abdominal irradiation require an additional respiratory motion compensation technique.

“For tumors that move with breathing (lung, liver, pancreas), we use a respiratory motion management system (Varian RGSC v1.0) to help patients manage their breathing during SBRT beam delivery. Essentially fixing the position of the tumor and allowing the beam to be aimed only at the lesion with minimal impact on the surrounding normal tissues. For lung tumors, we most often use an irradiation technique with deep inspiration breath hold – DIBH (deep inspiration breath hold), and for abdominal tumors we use an irradiation technique in deep exhalation – EEBH (end expiration breath hold). This advanced technique of external beam radiation therapy (SBRT), although it is used on an increasingly large scale in selected oncological cases, is not yet settled by the Health Insurance Company in Romania. In the last year, of the total number of patients who benefited from stereotactic radiotherapy at Medisprof, most suffered from lung cancer (30%), followed by breast cancer (12%) and other tumor locations (prostate, colon, melanoma, CNS tumors) “, explained Dr. Claudiu Hopîrtean, the head of the radiotherapy department within Medisprof.

About Medisprof

With 19 years of experience in the private medical sector, Medisprof Group opened the first medical oncology clinic in 2010. In 2017, Medisprof Cancer Center was inaugurated, the largest private oncology hospital in Western Romania. With the help of investments in state-of-the-art equipment, but also by contracting some of the best oncology specialists, Medisprof offers treatments at the highest international medical standards, thus managing to become the #NearWest and, at the same time, remain accessible to all patients from Romania both in terms of distance and by granting free treatments, settled through the Health Insurance Company.

(Editorial)