Greeting
In Japan, where one out of every two individuals develop cancer, only a few doctors specialize in cancer treatment compared with those overseas; due to the nature of the disease, majority of cancer patients prefer to receive treatments in large hospitals.
For this reason, in hospitals, healthcare professionals do not usually have sufficient time to communicate with each patient; this situation is sometimes referred mockingly as a 3-minute visit, which is frustrating to both patients and healthcare professionals.
In addition, many clinics that provide folk cancer therapy employ only a few healthcare professionals adequately trained at hospitals, university hospitals, or research facilities specialized in cancer treatment; unfortunately, their treatments are not as effective as those provided in the hospitals.
Japan’s health insurance system offers services that the country can take pride in, because anyone can receive a similar level of treatment at any institution, and many cancer patients can receive advanced treatment based on the guidelines.
This is because standard therapies are selected by demonstrating high probability of being effective, based on the results of a previous large-scale study participated by thousands or tens of thousands of cancer patients.
However, since they are selected based on probability, there are a certain number of patients who cannot fully benefit from these treatments.
In the current situation, it is difficult to cure most advanced cancers with standard therapies.
Some cancer patients wish to receive more active therapies, even if they choose terminal care from a limited number of options.
In recent years, advances in genomic analysis have revealed that patients with the same disease, not limited to cancer, can present completely different symptoms.
Therefore, tailored treatment for each patient is already commonly performed in the United States, as indicated by the State of Union address by the then President Obama in 2015.
Since cancer is caused by gene mutations, individual genetic backgrounds are completely different even for the same cancer type; therefore, the sensitivity and effect of therapeutic drugs differ completely from patient to patient.
Although cancer can be eliminated by the immune system, the immune environment greatly differs from patient to patient, and a standard cancer immunotherapy may not be effective because it does not take into account the individual differences in patients.
For future cancer treatment, it will be necessary to personalize the treatment strategies.
To help resolve these various problems surrounding cancer patients, we opened this clinic to offer specialized support to cancer patients.
At NEO Clinic Tokyo, we provide “next-generation tailored treatment for each cancer patient,” utilizing our advanced technologies and experience cultivated in clinical research and studies at the Institute of Medical Science, the University of Tokyo, and Kyushu University Hospital, which are the leading bases for cancer treatment in Japan.