Improved Access to Elective Surgery is one of the areas in which Canterbury District Health Board has excelled in the 2009/10 End of Year Health Target results.

In the expansive region of Australasia-which includes Australia, New Zealand and neighboring islands-Auckland Radiation Oncology Centre (ARO) is the first to use Elekta VMAT, treating a patient with prostate cancer using a single 100-second arc of radiation.

Southern Cross health insurance now provides members with the choice to access private radiotherapy treatment in the South Island, after the organisation negotiated an 'Affiliated Provider' agreement with the new St Georges Cancer Care Centre in Christchurch.

Two linear accelerators, valued at $7 million, will be lowered into the concrete bunkers of the new Cancer Care Centre at Christchurch's St George's Hospital on Monday morning (December 7).

Wellington, Nov 23 NZPA - An Otago University researcher is investigating whether treatment choices made by rural women diagnosed with breast cancer can hurt their long term survival rate.

Wellington, Sept 29 NZPA - A new study to determine the best time to treat men with prostate cancer could eventually benefit many sufferers, researchers say.

A major New Zealand research initiative that will determine the best time for men with prostate cancer to receive radiation therapy after surgery to remove the prostate has been launched in New Zealand and Australia.

Planning is under way to prevent a future staffing shortage across New Zealand universities as traditional sources for academic staff dry up at the same time as a large proportion of the academic workforce retires.