Why is Radiotherapy Not More Accessible as a Cancer Treatment?

While radiotherapy as a technology and cancer treatment has advanced in terms of toxicity, precision, and accuracy, several logistical obstacles prevent the modality from being a viable treatment option for many patients, even in high-income countries.

During an interview about a report on the current state of radiotherapy released surrounding the 2025 American Society of Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Annual Meeting, CancerNetwork® spoke with one of the main contributors, Pat Price, MA, MD, FRCR, FRCP, visiting professor of Oncology at Imperial College London, in London, England; chair of Radiotherapy UK; and co-founder and chair of the Global Coalition for Radiotherapy.

Price stated that integrating radiotherapy technology into more geographical regions is important, as there are still 38 countries in the world that do not have access to radiotherapy. Additionally, she noted that more places need to recognize the importance of radiotherapy.

According to her, radiotherapy, at the maximum, costs around 7000 pounds per treatment when considering a machine, which typically costs approximately 2 million pounds, will treat about 700 patients yearly for 10 years.

Read the full report here: Adaptive Radiotherapy | Precision Cancer Treatment

Transcript:

What are the obstacles to implementing better radiotherapy infrastructure in lower- and middle-income regions?

You can have inaccessibility in high-income countries as well. Currently, in the UK, we have our own problems with access. There are a number of levels. There’s a geography problem where you have to go to the machines. If you are in a very wide area—38 countries in the world do not have access to radiotherapy—if you want radiotherapy, you have to travel. Travel distance is often a problem. Obviously, as we can get more access with machines into places, you can improve on that.

The other thing, at a policy level, is recognizing the importance of radiotherapy. Now, it is a relatively cheap treatment—in the UK, we assess that a machine may cost 2 million pounds…. That sounds like a lot of money, but that can treat 700 patients a year for 10 years. That is very cheap; in the UK, that works to 400 pounds per patient. As the staff, we reckon it’s about 7000 pounds maximum for treatment. This is nothing. One course of chemotherapy or immunotherapy can cost that amount, but I think it’s [quite] difficult to get that message through to policymakers.

We know that in many lower-/middle-income countries, from the work we have done with the Global Coalition [for Radiotherapy], that perhaps you may get as far as countries buying the machines, but then they do not have the [wherewithal] to know what to do with them. Literally, there are countries where they do not take [the radiotherapy machines] out of the boxes. That’s why we have made an essentials document saying what you need to implement this. A lot of it, now, can be helped because you have to train your workforce, but also so much can be done remotely.

Reference

Precision targeting, global impact: cancer radiotherapy in the 21st century. AboutAdaptive. 2025. Accessed October 6, 2025. https://tinyurl.com/4rah5v6k