Cancer treatment ads exaggerated, says govt

WHILE the government cannot prevent cancer patients from flying to China to get radioisotope implants, it will ask the hospitals to tone down their allegedly inflated advertising claims for the treatment’s benefits.

An initial probe of the hospitals’ representative offices in Thailand turned up no evidence of illegal medical practices as they are only information centres referring cancer patients for treatment in China. 

“However, we found that the advertisements of these foreign hospitals do not comply with Thai law on advertising, as they showed before-and-after pictures of patients, and the ads were reportedly exaggerated,” Dr Boonruang Triruangworawat, director-general of the Health Service Support Department, said yesterday during a Public Health Ministry press conference on the issue.

Besides warning about false advertising, the department will also ask the hospitals to submit lists of cancer patient undergoing “brachytherapy” and ask the Chinese government to check on the hospitals in that country offering such services.

As these hospitals operate abroad, Thai authorities can’t regulate them.

The department will seek the hospitals’ cooperation to ensure their ad campaigns comply with Thai law and ask for patient lists so that it can identify their customers. 

“The department will also ask the Chinese Embassy in writing to ask the Chinese government to check if these hospitals have a valid licence and treat cancer according to medical standards,” he said.

Deputy Public Health Minister Somsak Chunharas said the radiation leakage from the body of a patient who was implanted with iodine-125 (I-125) as a cancer treatment from China was not a serious problem. The radiation can be easily contained if the patient wears a safety suit and follows the instructions. “The real problem is that the patients do not know that after they’re implanted with I-125, the radiation can reach outside their body, which can be harmful for medical staff and people nearby, especially children and pregnant women,” he said. 

“If you have I-125 or are not sure that you have undergone the operation, you can visit the National Cancer Institute and seven other cancer hospitals in Lop Buri, Udon Thani, Ubon Ratchathani, Lampang, Chon Buri, Surat Thani and Pathum Thani for a free test,” he said.

The use of I-125 for other kinds of cancer than the early stage of prostate cancer is not approved as a scientifically effective treatment, he said.

According to the ministry, brachytherapy is also prescribed in Thailand for prostate-cancer patients in eight hospitals. The rough cost of treating cancer in Thailand as calculated by King Chulalongkorn Memo-rial Hospital is Bt100,000-Bt200,000, compared with a minimum of Bt100,000 at Fuda Cancer Hospital in China. 

The website of the Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou’s office in Thailand – www.moderncancer-thai.com – yesterday contained pictures of patients before and after the procedure and also articles about the efficiency of I-125 implants to cure cancer. There was also a video interview of a Thai colon-cancer patient carrying more than 20 I-125 seeds inside him.

Reportedly nearly 1,000 Thais have elected brachytherapy in China for their cancer.