Dave Romanow says his best hope is NanoKnife surgery in Saskatoon.
Romanow has pancreatic cancer. Several rounds of chemotherapy and two surgeries have failed to eradicate the tumour, but he’s pushing for the minimally evasive NanoKnife procedure to be made available to him and other pancreatic cancer patients in Saskatchewan.
“I’ve gone through two cuttings, seven poisonings and over a dozen times in emergency,” says Romanow, who was at the Saskatchewan Legislative Building in Regina on Monday to plead for his life.
“We probably could have saved the province a lot of money if we had gone with this procedure.”
NanoKnife is a procedure in which electrodes are placed around the tumour and 3,000 volts of electricity are used to electrocute it.
The surgery has been around for about a decade but is new to Canada, with the Saskatoon Health Region being home to one of two machines in the country.
“We have the NanoKnife machine in our possession on loan from the vendor and we are currently in the midst of a renal research trials,” a statement from the health region read Monday. The surgery is not available to patients with pancreatic cancer.
A Saskatchewan health ministry spokesperson wrote in a statement to CTV News NanoKnife treatment is not covered by medicare in Canada because more clinical trials are needed to determine whether the procedure works.
Some patients have been flying to Germany for the treatment.
Shaun Ekert’s father underwent the procedure in Germany after the family raised $60,000.
“You can stay here in hospital stays for upwards of $200,000 to $300,000 — basically until your life is over — or go over to Germany for, let’s say, $60,000 to $70,000, and they revoke it,” Ekert said.
Trent Hills Mayor Hector Macmillan in Ontario also flew to Germany for a successful surgery in 2016. The case was highly publicized.
“I got a new lease on life,” he said.
--- based on a report by Wayne Mantyka
