ACR Members, Fellow Discuss Financial Influences on Prostate Cancer Treatment Choices
Two ACR members spoke out against physicians being influenced in their choice of treatments for prostate cancer by profit potential in a Dec. 1 article in The New York Times titled “Profit and Questions on Prostate Cancer Therapy.” The article focused on the use of intensity modulated radiation therapy as a popular avenue of treatment for the nearly 240,000 men in the United States who are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year.
While proven to be an effective treatment option for prostate cancer patients, IMRT also offers a tremendous profit potential, often as much as $47,000 per patient, the article noted, making the treatment an attractive business addition for many non-radiologists, a growth fueled by new companies which are marketing IMRT technology and services as a ready-made package.
“It’s all money-driven, and it’s a shame medicine has come down to this,” ACR member Brian J. Moran, MD, of Chicago, said in the article. Moran, a radiation oncologist, is a specialist in the use of radioactive-seed implants for treating prostate cancer.
ACR member Eli Glatstein, MD, a radiation oncology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, also expressed his concern that some treatment decisions, especially by non-radiologists, could be financially influenced. “It’s not illegal to do this,” Glatstein noted in the article. “That doesn’t make it right.”
ACR Fellow Jay L. Bosworth, MD, of Manhassett, N.Y., was also included in the article.
Click here to read the full New York Times article (free registration may be required).