Japan firms market cancer treatment tech in RI

JAKARTA. Several Japanese firms held a seminar to promote their cutting-edge technology to fight cancer, which afflicts more than one million people in Indonesia.

The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry sponsored a recent seminar in Jakarta for the Hitachi Group, Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd., Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation and Ship Healthcare Holdings, Inc. to introduce their cancer diagnosis and treatment technologies.

The products offered ranged from three-dimensional computerized tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound as well as clinical laboratory systems.

The ministry’s healthcare industries deputy director, Noriyoshi Fukuoka, said that Japan, which controls 40 percent of the CT and MRI worldwide market, wanted to expand further in Indonesia.

The Japanese government, he said, has provided feasibility studies and promotional events to help the companies to tap the cancer-related health service market in Indonesia.

“When we present Japanese doctors here, they will also bring medical technology from our country and introduce it to Indonesian medical professionals. Thus, we can understand the needs and demands of the Indonesian health industry,” he told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of the seminar.

Fukuoka added that the campaign was supported by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), which provides soft loans to Indonesian parties to buy the products.

Earlier, Health Minister Nafsiah Mboi said that cancer remained one of the biggest killers in the country.

Breast and cervical cancer has become the most common fatal cancers death for women, while lung and prostate cancer were the most deadly cancers plaguing the nation’s men.

Nafsiah urged people to get cancer screening tests and live healthily to reduce the incidence of cancer, which she said would also save the government money. 

Starting next year, the government plans to cover the medical expenses of citizens, especially the impoverished, through the National Social Security System (SJSN).

“Why must we allow a high number of cancer cases to happen in Indonesia? This will increase the spending for the SJSN scheme,” she said as quoted by kompas.com.

Ryosuke Tsuchiya, a board member of the Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research (JFCR), said that cancer awareness campaigns, vaccine distribution and medical technology adoption were the keys to fighting the disease.

“About 70 percent of cervical cancers are preventable. In Japan, the government gives the human papiloma virus [HPV] vaccine to female students in junior middle school. This effort goes hand in hand with cancer education,” he said at the seminar.

Most Indonesian women can not afford the vaccine. A HPV vaccine package, consisting of three shots, costs around Rp 2 million (US$205), slightly under Indonesia’s per capita monthly income last year.

Tsuchiya, who is also a lung cancer specialist, said that proton-beam therapy, a type of cancer treatment, can precisely localize radiation exposure compared to other external beam radiotherapy systems. Yet, the new technology was still “extraordinarily” expensive, he said.

“It costs about four billion yen ($42.82 million) to construct a proton-beam therapy facility. Considering the large number or cancer cases in here, Indonesia needs at least three proton-beam therapy facilities,” he said.

The Jakarta Post