NOW

Ideas at the Speed of Business

Cancer Care’s Quantum Leap

or decades, cancer patients underwent treatments that blasted tiny doses of radiation to large parts of the body, often damaging surrounding organs in the process. Now, a revolutionary new device called TomoTherapy does exactly the opposite. It delivers high-intensity radiation to smaller, more precise points in the body.

Nationwide, there are only 70 TomoTherapy machines. In Hawaii, there is only one. Estimated at $3 million, Hawaii’s TomoTherapy machine recently began operating in The Queen’s Medical Center’s new Cancer Center. It treats between 25 and 35 patients daily.

photo: Karin Kovalsky

The revolutionary machine comes at a critical time for Hawaii, where $500 million is spent annually on cancer care. This year, there will be an estimated 6,020 new cancer cases and 2,260 cancer deaths. The most common cancers in Hawaii are of the lung, colon, breast and prostate.

“This machine is going to be able to do so much more than other machines,” says Emily Robinson, medical physicist at the Cancer Center.

Here’s how TomoTherapy works: A scanner takes 3D images of a patient to pinpoint the exact shape and location of the tumor. It calculates how much radiation to deliver to the tumor and to surrounding areas. After determining the dosage, the machine sends thin, precise beams of radiation to the tumor from a circular bore that moves in arcs around the patient. The beams are as thin as one centimeter and can be set at 51 different angles. Older machines have from five to 13 angles.

“With this machine, we can deliver treatments that are very, very specific,” says Robinson. “For example, when treating lung cancer, we can deliver a dose just to the lung tumor and keep the dose really low to the lungs and spinal cord.”

TomoTherapy is a breakthrough for head- and neck-cancer treatments, which often damage salivary glands. It also has the ability to reconstruct exact amounts of dosage, taking the guesswork out of treatments. The machine was created by TomoTherapy Inc. based on research at the University of Wisconsin. TomoTherapy, a 10-year-old company, went public in May (NASDAQ: TTPY).

– Cathy S. Cruz-George

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Pho for the Soul

Evan Leong Says he has always liked books like “Chicken Soup for the Soul,” but there has been an absence of books that specifically related to life in Hawaii, books that tapped the wisdom of business leaders and community leaders in the Islands. “Here, we have some of the best and brightest in the world, but Hawaii books are always about sunshine,” says Leong.

photo: courtesy Greater Good Radio

That’s when Leong and his wife, Kari, who together founded Greater Good Radio in 2005, decided to tap into their long list of interviews and create a book of the distilled wisdom of some of Hawaii’s most respected leaders. The more than 200-page result will hit stores in November: “The Greater Good: Life Lessons from Hawaii’s Leaders.”

Some of the first-person entries are from Hawaii business leaders such as Walter Dods, Douglas MacNaughton and the late Paul Loo. The stories break down into categories such as “Follow Your Passion,” “Giving Back” and “The Importance of Family,” and include childhood photos to accent the humble beginnings of many of the writers.

Leong envisions the book as an opportunity to learn from some of Hawaii’s most successful people about how to lead a successful, balanced life in the Aloha State. The book is being published by Hawaii Business’ sister company, Watermark Publishing.

-Scott Radway

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The Economic Bite

living in colonies numbering as many as a quarter million, the red imported fire ant is relentless once it gets loose. Ant colonies move like massive armies, constructing earthen mounds or nesting opportunistically in buildings nooks, sprinkler systems and even farm equipment.

Since finding its way to the Mainland in the late 1930s, the red imported fire ant has swept over 300 million acres in the southeastern United States, costing billions of dollars annually in ecological and economic damage. More recently, it has made its way to Southern California, where projected impacts are expected to run as much as $9 billion over the next 10 years.

photo: istock

Now, it’s just one cargo ship away from Hawaii.

According to a new study by Hawaii researchers on the economic impact of potential introduction of the red imported fire ant here, the cost to Hawaii could be more than $211 million a year when considering impacts on everything from impingement on recreational opportunities to infrastructure damage. The study’s authors, researchers John Gutrich, Ellen VanGelder and Lloyd Loope, say projected expenditures over a 20-year period following introduction could total $2.5 billion.

Here’s a snapshot of their findings. Individual households would spend more than $48 million a year on pesticide control. Impacts on urban infrastructure, such as power lines, cable lines and even damage to public buildings, could add up to more than $17 million annually. Recreation, tourism and business impacts would cost almost $7 million annually; agriculture, including cattle and crop production, as well as flowers and nursery quarantine, would cost more than $3 million.

You might think we already have fire ants. Three species of fire ants already exist in Hawaii, including the little fire ant, on the Big Island and on Kauai. But the red imported fire ant, or Solenopsis invicta, is far more aggressive and its bite much more powerful. “We have to be on the watch and prevent it from coming in,” Gutrich said. “As the red imported fire ant spreads there is a diminishing ability to control it.”

-Priscilla Perez Billig

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Hawaii Business defines often-spoken words, new and old, to help you make sense of what's being said.

High Makamaka: When someone greets you with an “aloha,” not repeating it back could earn you the label high makamaka – a local Pidgin word meaning “snobby or condescending.” While the exact origin is unknown, scholars believe the local term is a derivative of “high mucky muck,” an English term, adapted from the language of the Chinook Native Americans, meaning pompous person. Local experts say when “high mucky muck” reached Hawaii, locals possibly adapted it by integrating the Hawaiian word “maka,” meaning “eye,” and created a metaphor for eyes looking down. -Matthew K. Ing Email confusing words to hbeditorial@pacificbasin.net

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We’re #1! (by far)

It’s true, according to the Milken Institute, we are still the most expensive place to do business in the United States. What, you knew that? Well, this year we have our biggest lead ever, according to historical data provided by the Milken Institute. New York, the No 2. state, had an overall rating of 130.9. Our overall rating was 151.5, more than 20 points higher. In third place, Alaska had a 130.8 rating.

For perspective on how we are doing over the years, in 2002 we were the No. 7 most expensive state to do business.

The Cost-of-Doing-Business Index measures wage costs, taxes, electricity costs and real estate costs for industrial and office space. When it comes to those costs, electricity and industrial rent cost is where we outstrip all other states. For 2007, we have a 260.7 rating for electricity. New York has a 141.5 rating; Alaska, 150.3. For industrial rent, we have a 269.5 rating; the Big Apple has a 154.4 rating.

Ironically, our wage cost index is much lower than other top states. That means we pay our people less than those who live New York or even Alaska. We then have trouble finding people because they can’t afford to live here.

Lucky, Hawaii is such a nice place to live.

COST-OF-DOING BUSINESS INDEX HAWAII’S RANKING OVER THE YEARS	2007 MOST EXPENSIVE STATES TO DO BUSINESS IN:
2007 No. 1 (by 20.6 points)	1. HAWAII
2006 No. 1 (by 18.6 points)	2. New York
2005 No. 1 (by 12.4 points)	3. Alaska
2004 No. 1 (by 11.9 points)	4. Massachusetts
2003 No. 4	5. Connecticut
2002 No. 7	6. California
	7. New Jersey
	8. Vermont
	9. Delaware
	10. Rhode Island

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