In December 2010 I visited a clinic in France because I was suspecting Dupuytren disease on my right hand (my father had it and I started to notice "problems" in my hand). The doctor there confirmed I had the disease, at early stage.
The clinic I visited told me I should wait and think about surgery when I will be at a stage where I cannot put my hand flat on a table. Honestly I was not satisfied with the proposal : I wanted to see if something could be done before I reach the stage where I cannot anymore put my hand flat on the table instead of waiting.
Therefore I started to read on the interneet about the different treatments and RT attracted my attention.
I am french, living in Japan, and therefore I looked for clinics either in France or Japan which could do RT for Dupyutren. Unfortunately I couldn't find any. I started to look the opportunities in the other countries and I chose Strahlenzentrum in Hamburg : http://www.strahlenzentrum-hamburg.de/
In 2011 and 2012 I made 3 visits for RT treatment and as I am happy with the choice I made so I want to share the information in case some of you are looking for a clinic abroad.
Before deciding to go for assesment and a possible treatment I could exchange emails and pictures with the professor Seegenschmiedt to evaluate if the timing was good for treatment.
The professor Seegenschmiedt has a long experience in RT treatment of Dupyutren. This if the main reason I choose his clinic
Once we decided the conditions of my hand was good for a visit, I went to Hamburg to meet the professor on Monday for an assesment of my situation. As the professor evaluated that my stage was good for RT treament I started right away my first RT session. Then I did 1 session everyday until the Friday and went back home. I repeated this 1 week treatment 2 times for my hand, with about 10 weeks between the 2 treatments.
Appart from the expertise, getting the treatment at this clinic was good for the following reasons :
- The staff speaks English (I don't speak German) and is friendly
- It is very close to the airport so you can arrive on Monday, go straight to the clinic, and leave right away after your last session on Friday. No time lose.
- It is 20mn from the center of Hamburg by train and then 10mn walk from the station so I took an hotel in the center and just went to the clinic once a day to get my treatment, which was taking me 90mn max each day. the rest of the day I was free for tourism or anything else.
- There is no fixed time for the treatment session, you can come when you want. This flexible solution permitted me to enjoy the tourism in Hamburg without having to think about tight schedule for treatment. I never waited more than 15mn to get a treatment.
- Finally, the budget of the treatment was in my opinion reasonnable.

If you are in the process of looking for a clinic abroad and want more details from my experience please feel free to contact me with questions.

Regards

Yann