Cancer treatment offers hope - but not in Australia

---

TodayTonight meets a man who says his life was saved by a radical new cancer treatment which is not available in Australia.

Chris Smith was given three months to live when a cancerous tumour began ravaging his body in November 2004.

Doctors ruled the growth, on his neck, was inoperable and sent him home to die, but Chris refused to give in.

"When I was told you've got 90 days to set your affairs in order, I could have said, 'Well thanks very much', I could have gone home and 90 days later I'd have been dead," he explained.

"Or I could say, 'Well that's your opinion, thanks very much, I'll see you in six months for a check-up'."

Determined to beat the cancer, Chris and his partner Maz set about finding their own solution.

First, they turned to alternative medicine, which offered them two years' respite, until the tumour returned with a vengance in January.

And then Chris's case came to the attention of an oncologist in the US.

"He saw my photos, and he said, 'Get over here straight away, I think we've got a 70 to 80 per cent chance that we could cure this'.

"I had never heard the word cure from anybody, in two and a half years, and he was quietly confident."

So Chris flew to Arizona to undergo a treatment called TomoTherapy. Seen as the 'next generation' of radiotherapy, TomoTherapy uses a CT scanner to allow doctors to distribute doses of radiation more accurately.

"They put you through a CT scan so they have printed on a computer screen exactly where the tumour is, the depth, so they can pinpoint exactly where to radiate - just on the mass of the tunour - without damaging too much of the surrounding areas," he said.

The treatment worked wonders for Chris.

"Over a period of three weeks it shrank from being about 11cm, pushing my ear up - it was a massive, massive lump - and within three weeks it had shrunk down to about 30 per cent of that size, and it has continued to shrink to the point where it is now the size of a 50 cent piece."

But despite being offered at clinics and hospitals across the US, Europe and Asia, it is not available in Australia.

"I tried to chase up TomoTherapy in Australia and was told, 'no, it's not available, it's a really expensive machine', said Chris.

"What's $4million, what's $10million in setting up a TomoTherapy machine? They've got about 20 centres in the US."

"About four years ago it became clinically available in the United States and there are now some 50 or 60 systems available all over the world - there's none in Australia though," said Professor Tomas Kron, Australia's only TomoTherapy expert.

Health bosses say the $5 million price tag, and a lack of long-term evidence of the machine's effectiveness, are the reasons why the treatment has yet to hit our shores.

"The jury is probably still out because clinical evidence is not generated overnight - in order to find out if a radiotherapy or any cancer treatment is successful, we need quite a long follow-up time," said Professor Kron, of Melbourne's Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.

The institute has recently undertaken a large-scale equipment replacement program, investing in Linear Accelerators which cost about $4 million each. They will last 10 years, and treat 5,000 patients, but the centre said it would take a TomoTherapy machine if one was offered.

"We have one system of doing it at the moment, TomoTherapy offers a different approach to the same problem, but if someone were to come along and give us one we'd say yes," said oncologist Gillian Dechesne.

Chris Smith believes his case shows just how important a weapon TomoTherapy is in the battle against cancer - and he is calling for it to be made available here.

In order to undergo the $60,000 treatment overseas, he was forced to sell his house and miss his daughter's wedding. But he and Maz say they have no regrets.

"We've sold our home, we're going to live in an old 20ft caravan. It might sound terrible, but it's a beautiful little old caravan, and we'll be happy as Larry in there, because we still have each other," said Chris.

To learn more about TomoTherapy, click here for the TomoTherapy website.

For information about the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, visit the facility's website.