New fields added to health tourism

Having become a major economic player in healthcare, Turkey has now also started to become foreigners' choice for cancer treatment. Turkey — which has managed to be one of the first three countries in the world able to treat cancer without chemotherapy using smart drugs developed from gene maps — received patients from more than 70 countries in 2022. Turkey has joined the ranks of countries able to carry out treatments designed on the basis of gene maps.

Saying that Turkey has become an important centre in health tourism, Medical Oncologist Prof. Dr. Mutlu Demiray drew attention to the importance of a personalized approach in cancer.

Demiray said: "Until now, organ-based treatment was applied to everyone. For example, all patients with stomach cancer were assessed the same way. The stomach of an African patient and that of a Russian patient cannot be the same; we see tissue differences even between two siblings. When cancer tissues are examined, at the molecular level all tumours differ from one another, so all cancers must be treated in a personalized way. Turkey is currently applying the most modern cancer treatment in the world. In genomic-based treatment — that is, treatment carried out by mapping the genes and revealing the molecular pathways — we can use personalized smart drugs and immunotherapy. By providing consultancy and training to physicians from around the world, we have contributed to health tourism in another dimension."