Hello, new member here...(sigh)

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  • Swingshiftworker
    Swingshiftworker Member Posts: 1,017 Member
    #22
    flyguy909 said:

    Swingshift,
    Yes, one of the
    Swingshift,

    Yes, one of the first things I did was read Marckini's book. Gave me alot of hope.

    I understand your decision process, but let me ask a hypothetical... if your insurance would have covered either CK or PBT, and you lived close to a PBT facility where the two month treatment would not have been a huge inconvenience.. do you think you would have still chose CK?

    You got to wonder.. if CK was available when Marckini was doing his due-diligence whether he would have still chose PBT? That's one of my concerns about the upcoming decision process - that maybe CK is superior (say for my case), but the PBT facilities have SO much $$ invested that they have no choice but to push their therapy. Then I read somewhere that the new PBT centers coming on line have a more accurate "pencil beam" delivery.. that Loma Linda and MassGen do not. Also, I understand MassGen does not do the balloon thing like Loma Linda. All questions when I talk to them...

    Again, thanks for all the responses.

    No Change For Me
    Flyguy:

    If my insurance covered both CK and PBT and I lived close to a treatment facility for both, I would have still chosen CK because of the reduced number of treatments and increased accuracy of CK over PBT (which eliminate the need for the body casts and balloon).

    Nothing against PBT. It has a good track record -- longer than CK -- and a huge support group w/BOB (Brotherhood of the Balloon sponsored by Marckini). However, I do think CK has now technologically superseded it and, if it was available when Marckini had to make the decision, I think he may very well have chosen CK over PBT.

    I agree that the medical centers have a huge investment in PBT and that they certainly are not going to shut them down because something new has come along. So, while I don't think they necessarily "push" PBT, they have no choice but to tell a patient that that's all they have to offer rather than invest more money in CK (or other technologies) which might be better but also endanger their investment in PBT equipment, training and personnel.

    Remember, they actually have to build a nuclear particle accelerator (a cyclotron) in order to establish a proton beam therapy center at a cost (according to one report) of between $100-225M to build and this doesn't include the associated costs of training and maintaining the personnel and associated facilities.

    So, like any consult, you have to take what the PBT people tell you with a grain of salt. Let us know what they say and I'll be interested to hear why they think they can now conduct PBT w/o a balloon, because if everyone who does PBT stops using the balloons, BOB will have to adopt a new name. LOL!

    Good luck!

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