10/13/2025
Heidi Toplansky was diagnosed with two different cancers — one in each breast — in 2012.
She jumped at the chance to get intraoperative radiation therapy, a therapy that delivers a single, targeted radiation dose to a patient’s breast tissue immediately after surgery to remove a tumor, in one breast. She received traditional radiation to treat the tumor in the other one because it was not a candidate for alternate therapy.
Known as IORT, it costs patients less in both time and money than traditional radiation treatments, and it is far less grueling. It has been widely available overseas — in Europe, South America and Asia — for more than two decades.
Even though her surgeon ended up detecting cancer cells near where her tumor had been, forcing her to undergo repeated bouts of whole breast radiation after the IORT, Toplansky is a huge proponent of the treatment.
But the treatment is not as widely available in the United States as it once was, according to interviews with a dozen breast surgeons. They contend that is because it cuts into the revenue of doctors and hospitals that rely on the far larger sums of money generated by traditional radiation treatments.
Radiation oncologists who perform IORT receive about $525 per treatment, Medicare estimates from 2022 show, far less than the $1,300 they receive performing whole breast radiation with five sessions and the $1,730 generated by 15 sessions. Hospitals also benefit from repeated radiation sessions, which generate facility fees every time a patient returns for care.
Read more: nbcnews.app.link/hdwnnDREkXb
