Seeking to rein in medical costs, a commission in Michigan moved to prevent hospitals in the state from each spending $100 million or more to provide a new form of radiation treatment for cancer. The commission, which sets standards for major hospital construction, said it would allow only one center to be built in the state for the treatment, which is known as proton beam therapy. It ordered the state’s largest hospitals — four of which had already proposed their own centers — to collaborate on that one project. “The costs of multiple centers, each having the most expensive medical equipment yet developed, would be tremendous,” the state’s Certificate of Need Commission said. Proton therapy, which uses huge nuclear particle accelerators encased in thick concrete walls, can deliver radiation more precisely than the X-rays now generally used to treat cancer. That can reduce the side effects from stray radiation and might improve the cure rate. But critics say that the technique’s advantage over X-rays has not been proved, except in certain rare tumors, and that proton therapy might not be worth the substantial extra cost. They say hospitals are engaged in a wasteful “arms race” for the prestige and profits that come from having a proton center. There are now five proton centers in the United States, most built in the last few years, and at least a dozen more have been announced.
Please click on the link below to read the New York Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/technology/01proton.html?_r=2&ref=health&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
For more information on defending medical malpractice, nursing home and general liability matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.
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Posted by citronlegal 
