In major pro-poor move, JPMC acquires robot to treat cancer

The machine will start working by March with the Patients Aid Foundation’s help.

KARACHI:

The poor in Pakistan will now be more privileged than the richest in the US and surely equal to the Sheikhs in Saudi Arabia when it comes to cancer treatment, as the CyberKnife Stereotactic Radio Surgery System (SRS), the most advanced robotic radio surgery has arrived, available free of charge for the deserving.

The CyberKnife is an alternative to surgery for the treatment of tumours and completely cures cancer at stages one and two. It can also be used to treat some stage three and four cancers to improve the patient’s quality of life. The technology thus offers new hope to patients who have inoperable or surgically complex tumours, or who may be looking for a non-surgical option.

The CyberKnife is a non-invasive treatment for cancerous and non-cancerous tumours anywhere in the body, including the prostate, lung, brain, spine, liver, pancreas, kidney. The treatment delivers high doses of radiation to tumors with pinpoint accuracy (sub millimetre), versus 5mm to 20mm in conventional radiotherapy and 2mm to 5mm in image-guided radiotherapy. It employs the technique of delivering pencil-thin beams of high-energy radiation from a 360-degree radius to the tumor, which converges precisely at the lesion inside the body.

“When a patient is diagnosed with cancer his concerns are the side effects, complications, out-of-job time and the cost of treatment but CyberKnife is a preferential treatment in terms of its medical advantages,” said Dr Tariq Mahmood, the head of the department of radiology at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, who is also the acting director of the project.

The treatment mostly involves one session of 30 to 90 minutes, but in some complicated cases it may be fractionated up to five sessions. To its advantage, the machine uses the world’s only intelligent robotic technology designed for radio surgery, which automatically and continuously tracks, detects, and corrects for lesion and patient movement.

The project was initiated by former JPMC director, Prof. Rashid Jooma, in March 2007. Mrs Ameena Adaya and her family were motivated by him and agreed to construct a dedicated building for the SRS. The ministry of health approved Rs789.64 million for the project but could not release the funds.

This is when the Patients Aid Foundation (PAF), an NGO working for JPMC, took up the responsibility of raising the unimaginably high sum of $4.1 million for the project’s completion. The money was raised with the help of many generous donors and the machine is now in Pakistan, said Mushtaq Chhapra, the chairman of PAF’s executive committee.

Another supporter, Saad Amanullah Khan, shared that there are about 20,000 patients per year in Pakistan suffering from untreatable cancers, but only about 250 manage to travel abroad for treatment. The remaining 98.75% either develop disabilities or suffer the misery of the disease.

The cost of treatment in the US varies between $50,000 and $90,000 and up to $20,000 in India and countries closer to us, whereas in Pakistan the cost will be $1,000 per patient. The affording patients will pay for their treatment, but for the underprivileged, the PAF will raise money from the project’s supporters.

The machine will be up and functioning by March this year, said Chhapra. The SRS building stands behind JPMC’s emergency. A dedicated staff has already been appointed and PAF’s technical committee comprises well-reputed professionals. PAF now requires $ 1 million per annum to meet the cost of maintenance, but the supporters of the cause are hopeful as they say, ‘where there is a will there is a way’.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 13^th, 2012.