Chung-Ang University Hospital (CAUH) said Tuesday that it has opened a new cancer center, which will provide “one-stop fast track service” to treat cancer.
The hospital has 40 medical staffs stationed to provide medical care for various types of cancer such as thyroid, breast, digestive, urinary, head and neck, lung, blood tumor, and radiation tumor, and also has treatment facilities for a central venous catheter and neuropsychological stress clinic, it said.
The new service program will allow the cancer patients to receive treatment quickly by performing the histological examination within three days, and surgery and therapy within one week.
To provide such a service, the hospital has established a multi-disciplinary integrated medical examination room, radiology room, nutrition, and patient education information room, outpatient cancer center, blood sampling room, and coordinator room, it said. The hospital has also hired a nurse specialized in cancer and a dedicated coordinator at the call center who can directly connect new cancer patients to the new center.
The hospital has equipped the center with state-of-the-art devices such as positron emission tomography-computed tomography, 3.0T magnetic resonance imaging, low-dose 256-slice computed tomography, and next-generation sequencing.
It plans to provide surgery doctors and urologists with robotic surgery. CAUH said it has also increased the accuracy of radiotherapy by implementing intensity-modulated radiotherapy, image-guided radiation therapy, and respiratory synchronization therapy,
“Patients who have been waiting for surgery for more than one month after the diagnosis of cancer show a higher mortality rate than those who underwent surgery within one month,” said Professor Shin Jong-wook, head of the CAUH’s new cancer center. “When the cancer is diagnosed, and the operation is decided, we should perform surgery within a week to minimize the risk of cancer metastasis.”
Such quick surgery can minimize the anxiety of the patient and increase the satisfaction of the treatment of cancer patients, Shin added.