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Half of cancer patients need radiotherapy and most of the world cannot get it. Commit to low-cost machines, automated planning and trained staff so that access is universal by 2040.
The Lancet Oncology Commission estimated enormous unmet radiotherapy need in low- and middle-income countries, with many countries having no machine at all. Barriers are capital cost, maintenance, physics and oncologist workforce, and planning complexity. The proposal is a coordinated programme: purpose-designed low-cost, low-maintenance linear accelerators for harsh environments (the CERN-STFC-ICEC effort), AI-automated contouring and planning with remote quality assurance, task-shifted training curricula, and pooled procurement and financing through IAEA Rays of Hope and development banks, with a public dashboard of machines per million and treatment gap by country.
Shares Elekta, Varian (Siemens Healthineers), International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC / WHO), Surgery and radiotherapy cure most, get least.
Shares Elekta, Varian (Siemens Healthineers), Surgery and radiotherapy cure most, get least, Most of the world has almost no cancer care.
Shares International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC / WHO), Brachytherapy, Surgery and radiotherapy cure most, get least, Most of the world has almost no cancer care.
Shares Elekta, Varian (Siemens Healthineers), Surgery and radiotherapy cure most, get least, IMRT / IGRT (modern external beam).
Shares Brachytherapy, Surgery and radiotherapy cure most, get least, Most of the world has almost no cancer care, Cervical cancer.
Shares Brachytherapy, SBRT / SABR (stereotactic radiotherapy), Most of the world has almost no cancer care, Cervical cancer.
Shares Elekta, Varian (Siemens Healthineers), Not enough oncologists, nurses, pathologists, physicists, Surgery and radiotherapy cure most, get least.
Shares Elekta, Varian (Siemens Healthineers), Most of the world has almost no cancer care.