“They found me a top oncologist abroad — and we were never alone.”

Diane Whitfield · Breast cancer patient

Facing a HER2-positive breast cancer diagnosis and a daunting cost estimate at home, Diane and her husband reached out to us for a second opinion — and found a path to treatment at a JCI-accredited cancer center in İstanbul.

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“They found me a top oncologist abroad and handled everything. We saved money and never felt alone.”

The diagnosis

In the spring of 2025, a routine mammogram near her home in Ohio turned into a biopsy, and then into the words no one is ready for: HER2-positive invasive breast cancer. At 54, Diane had always been healthy. Suddenly she was reading about chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and surgery — and looking at treatment estimates that her insurance would only partly cover.

“It wasn't just the fear of the cancer,” she remembers. “It was the feeling that every door had a price tag on it, and I couldn't tell which one was right.”

Searching for a second opinion

Diane's daughter found National Cancer Alliance online and sent us Diane's pathology report and imaging that same night. Within two days, a care coordinator called her back — in plain English, from a U.S. number — to explain what the reports meant and what her options looked like both at home and abroad.

We arranged a written second opinion from a breast-cancer specialist in our network. The plan lined up with what a leading U.S. center would recommend — modern neoadjuvant chemotherapy with HER2-targeted therapy, followed by surgery — but at a fraction of the price, in a JCI-accredited hospital in İstanbul.

Treatment at Acıbadem Maslak

Diane chose to travel to İstanbul, where her care was led by Prof. Dr. Özlem Er, a medical oncologist with MD Anderson training and two decades of experience in breast cancer. Every part of the trip was coordinated for her: flights, a hotel near the hospital, airport transfers, and a medical interpreter present at every appointment.

Her case was reviewed by a multidisciplinary tumor board before treatment began, and she received a written plan she could share with her family back home. “I expected to feel like a stranger,” Diane says. “Instead, from the first day, they treated me like a person, not a case number.”

Coming home

Diane completed her chemotherapy and targeted-therapy cycles and returned to Ohio for the rest of her recovery, with her scans and reports translated and organized so her local doctors could pick up her follow-up care seamlessly. Her coordinator checked in on her the week she landed, and again a month later.

“People ask if it was scary to go abroad for cancer treatment,” she says. “The truth is I felt more supported than I ever expected — and we saved enough that we didn't have to remortgage the house to fight this.”