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Cancer Treatment in the Dominican Republic

Medical tourism, the practice of traveling to a country for treatment of disease or for surgery, has become both common and very popular. In many cases, the cost for the trip, hotels, food and the treatment in places like Thailand, India, Mexico and the Dominican Republic are less than the patient's portion of the medical treatment in the United States. In most cases, the quality of doctors and quality of the treatment is comparable and sometimes better than in the U.S..

  1. Doctors

    • The Dominican Republic has a very good medical school, UNIBE Universidad Iberoamericana School of Medicine. Many doctors in the Dominican Republic have either attended medical school or have trained at American hospitals and schools. Because of the prevalence of medical tourism, many Dominican doctors are accustomed to working with patients from the United States who travel to the island either for elective procedures or because they are not covered by insurance in the United States.

    Standard Treatments

    • All standard cancer treatments, including chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgical intervention, are available in the Dominican Republic. Chemotherapy drugs are available and much cheaper than those sold in the United States. In some cases, Dominican pharmacies are allowed to deliver medications to patients in the United States, if the patient began treatment in the Dominican Republic. In some cases, the hospital may have an attached resort to make cancer treatment more pleasant than a simple hospital stay.

    Experimental Treatments

    • Some experimental treatments not yet approved for use in the United States may be available in the Dominican Republic. For example, high-intensity focused ultrasound, or HIFU, is an experimental treatment for prostate cancer that has not been approved in the United States. HIFU is used instead of radiation therapy and has none of the side effects of radiation therapy. In a case cited by the Cancer Cure Coalition, a patient traveled to the Dominican Republic for a week's HIFU treatment that cost substantially less than the $10,000 out of pocket costs for the unapproved procedure in an American hospital.

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