Many lung cancer ops ‘unnecessary’
One in five lung cancer operations could be unnecessary, according to health experts.
The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) claims that many patients are forced to have difficult surgical procedures because of a lack of positron emission tomography (PET) scanners in the UK.
Other European countries such as France and Germany have 80 of the high-tech PET scanners, which are capable of showing detailed cross-sections of a patient’s body and pinpointing the location of cancers.
However, the UK has just ten of the scanners, with seven being located in London, and it is estimated that lung cancer killed more than 33,000 people in the UK in 2003.
Dr Fergus Gleeson, a consultant radiologist, said: “Patients could have an operation that is totally pointless.
“It is bad enough having an incurable disease without spending a large amount of time in hospital having surgery and recovering from it.”
It is estimated that the UK needs at least 34 of the £1 million scanners to help reduce the need for surgery and the Department of Health is drawing up plans to ensure that each NHS cancer network has access to a PET scanner.
