Answers

Yes — the entire 72-hour tumor-board review happens remotely, based on the reports, scans, and pathology you send in. You receive a written assessment in your own language, a subtitled video from the named professor who reviewed your case, a treatment plan, and itemized price quotes from competing hospitals, all before you decide whether to travel at all. It replaces neither an in-person exam nor a pathology re-read, and the assessment says exactly what could and couldn't be verified remotely — but for many patients, it answers the question of whether traveling is even worth it. Start the free review here.

Yes, that's always your right — but it won't be cheaper. Every partner hospital's agreement includes a price-parity clause: you never pay more going through OncologyIstanbul than you would booking directly, because hospitals pay the service's fixed fee, not patients. Going through the service adds the free tumor-board review, competing itemized quotes from multiple hospitals, and a named coordinator handling translation and logistics — at the same price the hospital would quote you on your own. Direct, you negotiate alone with one hospital instead of several bidding for your case. See how the fee model works.

No. OncologyIstanbul never takes patient payments and never asks for a deposit — you pay the hospital directly, by card, bank transfer, or cash at the hospital's own cashier, only after you've reviewed and approved an itemized written quote. The free 72-hour tumor-board second opinion itself costs nothing and creates no obligation to proceed. If anyone asks you to pay a coordinator or agency upfront before you've even seen a quote, that is the pattern to be wary of, not the normal process. Read more about how the whole process works.

Most patients traveling from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia can enter Turkey visa-free or with an e-visa for stays that cover the length of treatment. Your coordinator confirms the exact rule for your specific passport and prepares the hospital's invitation letter, which is often needed alongside the visa application. Accommodation near partner hospitals typically runs $30–80 per night and is always itemized separately in your quote, never bundled into the treatment price. See more travel and logistics answers.

Every doctor featured on this site is a real, named physician whose profile lists their institution, subspecialty, years in practice, and publication count — not an anonymous "our specialists" listing. Turkish physicians can also be independently checked in the Ministry of Health's public registry, and every written assessment is signed by the reviewing doctor's name, not issued by the organization generically. If you'd like to request a specific professor for your case, you can ask, and if they're not the right subspecialty the coordinator will tell you who is instead. See the full roster of named doctors.

After you arrive, treatment typically starts within 2–4 days: arrival, an in-person consultation and baseline tests, then admission, with a day-by-day plan given to you before you even book flights. Getting to that point is fast too — the tumor-board review itself is completed and returned within 72 hours of your documents being confirmed complete, and surgery cases are generally planned around a 10–14 day stay in Istanbul including follow-up. Compare that with the waiting-list realities described in the Turkey vs Germany vs South Korea guide.

An allogeneic (donor-cell) bone marrow transplant costs roughly $65,000–95,000 in Istanbul, covering conditioning, the transplant itself, 30–45 days in an isolation ward, GvHD prophylaxis, and a 90-day follow-up protocol — versus about $280,000 for the same procedure in Germany, a 71% saving. Donor-registry fees and long-term immunosuppression after day 90 are not included. An autologous transplant, using the patient's own stored cells, is less complex and runs $38,000–55,000. These are placeholder figures pending Q3 2026 real quotes. See the full breakdown.

A full PET-CT staging package in Istanbul costs roughly $850–1,200, including the PET-CT itself, contrast CT where clinically indicated, tumor markers, and a written staging report delivered in your own language within 48 hours — compared with about $2,900 for the equivalent in Germany, a 65% saving. If staging uncovers something requiring biopsy, that is quoted separately before it happens, never added silently to the bill. These figures are placeholders pending Q3 2026 real partner-hospital quotes, refreshed quarterly alongside the rest of the price index.

A lumpectomy with sentinel node biopsy at a partner Istanbul hospital runs roughly $8,500–13,000, including surgery, anesthesia, intraoperative and final pathology, 1–2 nights inpatient, and surgeon follow-up — versus a typical German figure of about $22,000 for the same procedure, a saving of around 48%. Not included: flights, hotel, and any adjuvant radiotherapy or systemic therapy, which are quoted separately once your pathology results are known. Mastectomy with immediate reconstruction is a separate line at $11,000–16,500. These are placeholder ranges pending Q3 2026 real quotes. See the itemized breakdown.

A chemotherapy cycle at a partner Istanbul hospital runs roughly $1,200–2,800, covering the day-clinic chair, administration, premedication, monitoring labs, and oncologist review — compared with a typical German figure of around $6,500 per cycle, a saving of about 69%. The drugs themselves are not included in that range: they're itemized separately per protocol, with biosimilars offered where approved, because drug cost varies so much by regimen. These figures are placeholders pending Q3 2026 real partner-hospital quotes, refreshed quarterly. See the full itemized breakdown on the price index.

A standard IMRT/VMAT radiotherapy course of 25–30 fractions costs roughly $6,500–9,500 in Istanbul, including CT simulation, physics planning and QA, all fractions, weekly physician review, and a final report — against a typical German price of about $28,000, a 71% saving. More targeted robotic radiosurgery (CyberKnife, 1–5 fractions) runs $7,000–10,000, and single-session Gamma Knife runs $8,000–11,000. None of these include accommodation or concurrent chemotherapy, which are quoted separately. Figures are placeholders pending Q3 2026 real quotes, updated quarterly. See the full price index.

Files travel through an encrypted channel and are seen only by your named coordinator and the reviewing physicians — no one else. Hospitals receive an anonymized case summary with no name and no contact details until you personally approve a quote and give written consent to proceed. Phone photos of paper reports are fine as long as the text is readable, and you can ask your coordinator to delete your files and case record within 30 days, confirmed in writing; data is never sold or shared with third parties. Read the full privacy and documents FAQ.

The partner hospitals are JCI-accredited and licensed by the Turkish Ministry of Health — the same international accreditation standard used to benchmark hospital quality worldwide — and every case is reviewed by a named, credentialed subspecialist tumor board before any treatment decision is made, not an anonymous team. What OncologyIstanbul won't do is promise a cure or claim one country is universally "better": outcomes depend on the individual case, and the free second opinion is designed to tell you whether a proposed plan matches current international protocols, wherever you end up treating. For an itemized cost and wait-time comparison across destinations, see the Turkey vs Germany vs South Korea guide.

Within 72 hours of your documents being confirmed complete, you receive a written tumor-board assessment in your own language, a short subtitled video from the named professor who reviewed your case, a treatment plan, and itemized price ranges from competing hospitals — all at no cost and with no obligation to proceed. If your documents are incomplete, the board starts anyway and lists what's missing and what it would change; many cases begin with just a biopsy report and discharge summary. Afterward you can take the assessment to your local doctor, ask follow-up questions, or ask the service to arrange treatment — nothing is pushed. Start your free review.

It does happen, and it's exactly what a genuine second opinion is for — the board's review can change the staging, the recommended protocol, or the treatment sequence entirely, and that finding is stated plainly in your written assessment. If the board instead agrees with your current plan, that confirmation is also delivered as a clear answer: either way, you leave with a documented, signed opinion you can bring back to your local doctor. Nothing about this process asks you to act on it — there's no obligation to treat in Istanbul afterward. Start a free review of your case.

Consultation and document review are available in English, Russian, Uzbek, and Azerbaijani — you can send reports in any of these languages and medical translation is part of the free service, with no need to translate anything yourself first. Individual doctors' own spoken languages vary by physician; for example the roster includes surgeons and oncologists working in EN/RU, EN/AZ, and EN alone, and each doctor's profile lists their languages directly. During treatment, a coordinator and hospital interpreter also work in these languages, so consents and discharge papers are translated too. See the full doctor roster and each physician's languages.

A subspecialty tumor board — combining surgical, medical, and radiation oncology — chaired by a named professor whose name and credentials appear directly on your written assessment. It is never an anonymous "our team of experts"; every assessment is signed. For example, breast cases are led by Prof. Dr. Ayşe Demir (21 years in breast surgical oncology, 1,240 cases reviewed via the service), while GI cases go through Prof. Dr. Leyla Arslan and blood cancers through Assoc. Prof. Emre Yılmaz — each doctor's specific subspecialty and case count is listed on their own profile page. See the full roster.

Partner hospitals pay a fixed percentage fee because the service brings them verified international cases with complete documentation already prepared — cheaper for a hospital than running its own international-patient advertising and intake. That fee is the same regardless of which partner hospital ultimately wins a case, so there's no financial incentive to steer any particular patient toward any particular hospital. The price-parity clause backs this up contractually: patients never pay more than they would going direct to the hospital. Read the full explanation of how the model works.

Quotes initially arrive anonymized — labeled "Hospital A (JCI)" and so on — so that departments bid against each other without knowing who else is competing for your case, which keeps the pricing honest. The moment you have a real, itemized quote to compare, hospital names are revealed along with capabilities, accreditation, and the specific doctors who operate there. All partner hospitals are JCI-accredited and licensed by the Turkish Ministry of Health, independently verifiable through JCI's own public registry. Read more about hospital selection.