by
Sean Ruck, Contributing Editor | March 23, 2018
From the March 2018 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
HCB News: It seems like there’s a strong collegial atmosphere in the proton therapy realm. Why do you think that is?
SW: I think anytime there is the opportunity to greatly benefit others it tends to bring people together towards that end. When you’re involved in something that can have a positive impact for someone in need, you want to share with others so it can benefit as many people as possible.
Today, the NCI cancer statistics are showing more people are surviving their cancer and living longer. Therefore, they’re experiencing side effects we wouldn’t have seen in the past. We have to look at what technology we have to not only help them survive their cancer, but improve their quality of life. In 2016, there were almost 16 million cancer survivors in the U.S., or about 5 percent of the population, and 67 percent have survived greater than five years, which is where you start seeing side effects. The benefit of proton therapy is that you can’t have a side effect to a site that hasn’t been irradiated. And with cancer survivors projected to increase by 2026 to 20 million, the importance will grow.
HCB News: Last year, there were 26 proton therapy centers treating patients in the U.S. Can you provide the latest numbers?
SW: There are 26 operating full-service proton therapy centers in the U.S. with the opening of the Baptist Health Miami Cancer Institute Proton Therapy Center in the fall of last year. There are three current centers expanding their operations, nine under construction and 15 currently under development.
Of the 26 operating centers, all but three are members of the association with one of the three putting together their application to join the association. We also have developing centers that are members of NAPT, including the MedStar Georgetown University Hospital Proton Therapy Center and the Emory University Proton Therapy Center which both joined last year.
HCB News: Do you have the numbers on how many patients were treated in the U.S. in 2017?
SW: We work with our members to perform an annual survey to track the growth of proton therapy for both indications and volumes. We haven’t started our 2017 survey, but our preliminary data from 2016 suggests approximately 9,000 patients were treated, representing a growth of 15 percent from 2015, which would be the third consecutive year of double-digit growth.
HCB News: How are the efforts to get insurer reimbursement for proton therapy going? Any big breakthroughs over the past year?
SW: We made progress in 2017 with two Medicare administrative contractors covering nine states by broadening Medicare coverage for esophageal cancer, right-sided breast cancer, b-cell lymphomas, Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This is significant for those cancer patients who otherwise would not have been able to receive proton therapy for these indications.
