According to a recently published research letter, men with prostate cancer who live close to the Loma Linda proton beam radiation therapy (PBRT) center are five times more likely to choose PBRT for their treatment than are other men who live in California but don’t live close to Loma Linda! DUH!
For those who really feel the need to read the related details, please see the associated Reuters report on this shatteringly obvious finding! Unfortunately the actual “research letter” has no meaningful abstract.
As for who funded the study … it looks as though Kaiser Permanente must have done so … although they probably didn’t have to spend a lot of money on it since they were presumably able to mine their own data.
Filed under: Diagnosis, Living with Prostate Cancer, Management, Risk, Treatment Tagged: | Loma Linda, PBRT, proton beam
Search for new and
ongoing trials on the
CTAG PCa web site
Based on what I have read from patients, Kaiser does not automatically cover proton treatment. I can think of one example where a couple took out a second mortgage because Kaiser would not pay. Unless they have changed their policy not sure how much data they can mine.
Kathy:
Look at the list of author affiliations.