Radiation therapy plays a role in tumor treatment in the United States. As we all know, there are three main treatments for tumors, one is surgery, one is chemotherapy, and one is radiation therapy. Among all tumor treatments in the U.S., about 70% of the patients need radiation therapy in their treatment; and 70% of these patients are radical or involved in radical treatment, including playing a primary or auxiliary role in radical treatment; and among these 70% radical (involved in radical) treatments, 70% of the patients are cured; that is to say, 35% of the tumors are cured/involved in the curing of by radiation therapy. of tumors. The cure rate for tumors in the United States is approximately 60-70%, meaning that half or more than half of all tumors are cured by or with the participation of radiation therapy. In addition, according to the US Federal Health Care Administration, less than 5% of all oncology spending is on radiation therapy, which means that we cure/participate in the cure of 35% of all oncology patients with less than 5% of society’s resources, not to mention its role in other areas such as palliative care. It can be said that radiotherapy is the most cost-effective treatment when the indications are met. What are the differences between hospital radiology departments in China and the United States? The updating of radiology equipment in big hospitals in big cities in China is very fast, but one big difference is that the volume of patients in domestic hospitals is very large, and many people flock to big hospitals, and the load of big hospitals is too large, so it is very difficult to do a very fine job, in the U.S., one machine receives 30-40 patients per day, while one machine in China receives 100 or more patients per day, so it is really difficult to do; and then there are In addition, there is a disparity between each hospital in China, including the experience and training of radiotherapists, which can be improved, so I think it is the software aspect that is more important, that is, the training of personnel. In the United States, a radiotherapist first graduates from a university for four years, then a PhD for four years, and then five years of radiotherapy, and then finally becomes a radiotherapist, in contrast, the training period in China is much shorter. So there is indeed a gap here. In the United States, the best students in the university enroll in medical school, the best students in medical school enroll in radiotherapy, so the overall quality of radiotherapists is very high, which is one of the reasons why the United States radiotherapists have a higher clinical and academic status. What misconceptions do people have about radiation therapy? Some people think that radiation “causes” cancer rather than “cures” cancer; (people) are afraid that radiation damages normal cells and thinks that it will lead to cancer, and some people often ask, “Do you, radiologists, do radiation therapy on a regular basis for your patients? Some people often ask, “Doctors in radiology department, you often do radiotherapy for patients, will it cause infertility and so on?” In fact, at present, (doctors and patients) are very well protected, and such a situation will not occur at all. In fact, radiation is not scary, we are exposed to radioactive substances every day in our daily life, for example, one day’s CT imaging is equivalent to the amount of radiation we will receive in a year. Radiation itself is certainly not beneficial to the human body, and we can avoid it if we do not need it, but from the perspective of tumor treatment, the significance of this dose for tumor treatment is much greater compared with the possible side effects. The second misunderstanding is that people think that radiation equipment is more expensive. It is true that it is very expensive in terms of upfront investment, but in general, radiation equipment is a one-time investment. After the equipment is activated, as long as it is plugged into the power supply every day, patients can be admitted and treated, and the cost can be recovered. And compared to chemotherapy, many imported drugs for chemotherapy and targeted therapy, the annual investment is more than 100,000 to 200,000 dollars, or even dollars, cumulatively, it is a huge amount of investment than the radiation equipment is a lot of huge, so from the point of view of the hospital investor, its cost-effectiveness ratio is also relatively high. What is the room for development of radiotherapy in China? I think first we need to change the hospitals, the development of national policies and some of the public’s views on radiation therapy, such as the idea that radiation therapy is only a palliative treatment, surgery is the only means of radical treatment; the second is to change the fear of radiation therapy. In fact, everything has side effects, drinking water will choke, driving will crash, side effects are not afraid, the main thing is that we need to know how to apply and how to avoid. As a matter of fact, there are already a lot of data showing that in the treatment of early stage lung cancer, there is no difference between the cure rate and survival period of stereotactic radiotherapy and surgical resection, and there are even data published in some major journals showing that in some cases, the effect of radiotherapy is even better than that of surgical resection, and talking about the side effects, there are also side effects of surgical operation. For example, for resection surgery of lung cancer patients, the mortality rate of dying from surgical complications within 30 days of surgery is 5%, which means that 5 out of 100 patients may die from complications. However, in comparison, there is no death from radiation therapy within 30 days in the early stage of treatment of lung cancer. It is understandable that people are more receptive to traditional surgical methods because surgical treatment has existed for a hundred years, and it is difficult for them to accept new treatments. However, there is a knowledge transition, so that people should accept new treatments, and know that in some cases, its therapeutic effect is the same as that of surgical treatments, and even some things that surgical treatments can not do can be done, which is something that I am very happy to do with the radiotherapy and oncology communities and the public. , the oncology community, and the public to do some handoffs. As a matter of fact, through my personal contact, many Chinese patients have given up surgical treatment and accepted radiation therapy, especially in some early stage, older patients with poor lung function, who have received stereotactic treatment, and the effect is also very obvious.