APPENDIX 42
Letter to the Clerk of the Committee from
Mr John A Peel, Managing Director, Varian Medical Systems UK Ltd
Dr Desmond Turner suggested that I forward you
the attached article entitled "Three-Dimensional Conformal
Radiotherapy and Dose Escalation: Where Do We Stand?"[17]
from the Seminars in Radiation Oncology, for submission to the
Members of the Select Committee in their quest for data on cancer
treatment.
The paper shows improvements in relapse-free
survival from 30 per cent up to 50 per cent combined with reduction
in grade 2 toxicity from over 15 per cent down to 6 per cent in
prostate cancer.
As you will see the technique employed is intensity-modulated
radiotherapy and the paper describes results being achieved at
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York. Over 50 cancer
centres, predominantly in the USA but also in Western Europe,
Japan and Australia, have commenced IMRT trials. The total cost
of this treatment is in the region of £5,000 per patient.
Regrettably none of the centres in the UK are able to provide
this treatment technique at present but the Royal Marsden Hospital
in Fulham Road has purchased suitable equipment for high-resolution
IMRT and hopes to commence work in late Spring 2000.
Given the recent coverage in the press concerning
trials in the UK of IMRT techniques, I have brought this paper
to your attention since it is my firm opinion that the techniques
are available in the USA and that "Best Practice" should
be transferred to the UK, as soon as the equipment that has been
purchased by the NHS Trusts, under the NOF/HM Treasury funding,
has been installed.
3 April 2000
17 Not printed. Back
| 
