160,000 Australians at risk because of Government penny pinching
Lincoln Wright and Suellen Hinde
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More than 160,000 Australians have missed out on potentially life-saving cancer diagnosis and treatment because of Federal Government penny pinching, cancer experts claim.
Cancer doctors say a federal government decision not to fund an advanced medical scan, known as Positron Emission Tomography (PET), has cost thousands of lives and negatively affected the treatment of many more.
Official figures from the Cancer Council reveal the lives of more than 40,000 Victorians could have been saved or improved by better medical therapy since 2001.
"It's a national disgrace that these machines weren't more widely funded," Prof Rod Hicks of Melbourne's Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre said yesterday.
"Australia used to be a world leader in PET scans, but now we're even lagging developing countries like China, let alone advanced ones like the United States," he said.
"Australia has eight facilities that are government-funded, and 16 PET scanners overall," he said.
A PET scan machine costs about $2 million and patients can pay up to $1500 without a Medicare subsidy.
The number of cancer sufferers who may have benefited from PET could be much higher, with more than 690,000 Australians diagnosed between 2001 and 2006.
Those types include lung, breast, colorectal, prostate and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
The figures are based on government data on the impact of PET on cancer management as well as published data from the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. The figures do not include PET's usefulness in changing the treatment of other cancers, such as melanoma.
"PET also allows doctors to monitor the effect of surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy better, allowing more appropriate treatment," Prof Hicks said.
A spokesman for Health Minister Tony Abbott said yesterday he expected a new report into PET by the end of the month.
AAP
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