Two years ago, a number of PET/CT scanners at the HCM City Oncology Hospital, People’s Hospital No1 15 and Military Hospital No 175 could not be used because of the lack of radioactive drugs.

At that time, Cho Ray Hospital was the only hospital which still had an operational machine, so it had to receive many patients every day. The patients had to wait one month at least for their turn to have a PET/CT scans.

The mother of N.D.H, 72, in Binh Chanh district, contracted metastatic stomach cancer. Doctors told her to have PET/CT scans to find out where the cancer cells had metastasized so they could prescribe therapies for H.

H registered for a PET/CT scan for his mother at Cho Ray Hospital, but he was told to wait one month. Fearing that his mother’s conditions may get worse, he decided to travel 1,700 kilometers to Hanoi with his mother to have PET/CT scans.

It took them a long time to travel 3,500 kilometers (from HCM City to Hanoi and back), stay in Hanoi for one week to have tests on kidney and livers before having PET/CT scans and waited for results. The trip cost them VND100 million in total.

“If patients don’t have PET/CT scan and only have normal CT scans, the images will be not clear enough, and if so, patients will have to undergo both radiotherapy and chemotherapy, which not only costs patients a lot of money, but also affects their health,” a doctor explained.

T.P.D, 67, from Ben Tre, was another sufferer from the lack of radioactive drugs. He was told to have PET/CT scans for suspicion of nasopharyngeal cancer. After many days of waiting, his sons decided to take him to Da Nang to have scans. At that time, D could not eat and drink and his condition was so bad that he had to move around in a wheelchair. His two sons had to take unpaid leave to take him from Ben Tre to Da Nang and then bring him back to HCM City for treatment.

According to Dr Nguyen Trieu Vu from Thu Duc City Hospital, while other imaging methods can only be applied to one area of ​​the body, PET/CT can examine the whole body. The scans help detect diseases at the cellular and molecular levels and have high sensitivity, specificity and accuracy, capable of detecting problems and diseases in very early stages.

Therefore, when patients are suspected of contracting cancer and told to have PET/CT scans, they won’t sit and wait for radioactive drugs. Many patients go to other cities and provinces to have scans, while well-off families take their relatives abroad.

K.C, a doctor who once worked for a hospital in HCM City for a long time and now works in a foreign country, said he has helped some patients have PET/CT scans in Singapore and then return to Vietnam for treatment.

“Compulsory PET/CT scans are prescribed for some cancers, such as lung cancer, lymphoma. In other cases, the images on film are not clear enough to conclude if metastasis has occurred or not,” C said. “As patients are told to wait too long, they ask for my help."

When going abroad, patients may face some problems, including the language difference and high costs. Patients have to pay about VND70 million to have PET/CT scans in Singapore. Also, they have to pay for travel, food and accommodations. It takes hundreds of million of dong to go abroad for PET/CT scans.

“I don’t know when the problem can be solved,” C said.

Meanwhile, Vu said when prescribing patients to have PET/CT scans, he contacts the scanning unit, but patients still have to wait 1-2 weeks.

According to experts, PET/CT scans are prescribed when it is necessary to assess the status of distant metastasis of tumors; to accurately diagnose the status of primary cancer tumors if other means cannot give a suitable answer; or examine the state of cerebral hypoxia and brain tumors.

Cho Ray Hospital is sharing radioactive drugs with the Military Hospital No 175 and HCM City Oncology Hospital. However, its radioactive drug reactor capacity cannot be expanded, and demand is increasing.

Khanh Hoa - Bach Duong