Breast Cancer care in Japan

I’ve been living in Japan for 26 years and am on Japanese health care insurance through my husband’s company. Seven years ago, when I was 44, on a routine mammogram, breast cancer was discovered. I had gone for a routine mammogram every year, for about $30 each time. A few times, something was expected, but through needle-point biopsies, nothing was discovered. This time, I was in an early stage of cancer, but needed a lumpectomy. I wasn’t satisfied with the first hospital, so I had two other second opinions and chose the best hospital in Japan, and fortunately, the best surgeon connected to it. The surgery was performed and a 4-day hospital stay in a private room cost us only about $2,800. It would have been more than 10 times that if it had been in the U.S. A friend of mine had the same procedure, and I think it cost her over $50,000 in the U.S. (She didn’t have American insurance.) I went to Tokyo monthly for hormone treatments to stop my periods and had radiation treatments at a local Cancer center for 5 weeks. The treatments including Tamoxifen that I was on for 5 years, cost me only about $100 per month because of the insurance.



Japanese insurance, and the ease of just showing our insurance card with the country taking care of the rest, made it inexpensive and very easy for me to get the treatment I needed. We could not have afforded the treatment that I got, and check-ups I continue to get, AND at one of the best hospitals in the world, if we hadn’t had Japanese insurance.

Vivian Morooka
Chiba, Japan