New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday laid the cornerstone for India’s first Hadron therapy centre for cancer patients at the Tata Memorial Centre in Mumbai. The facility, funded by the department of atomic energy, is expected to cost Rs425 crore and be completed in less than four years.
“This is the first such facility in India and it places India among a select group of countries in the world to offer this advanced treatment method for cancer,” Singh said at the function.
For treating cancer, facilities in India use radiation therapy, in which X-rays or beams of high energy photons are used to destroy tumour cells in a patient.
“The Hadron facility will use proton beam therapy which scatters less as compared to radiation,” said Anupam Rishi, radiation oncologist in Tata Memorial Centre. “Radiation although kills the tumour, it also kills the surrounding tissues in the process. That is not the case with a proton beam, which is very small and more precise.”
Studies have also shown proton beam therapy has the potential for improving tumour control and survival through dose escalation.
Doctors at Tata Memorial Centre say use of the facility could cost a a patient less than Rs1 lakh.
Rishi said the Hadron facility will be used for research purposes as well. “Data related to proton therapy is very premature, as compared to data for photon therapy because the technology is comparatively new in the country, hence this facility will be used for research,” he said.
The National Hadron Beam Facility would be one among 43 operational particle therapy facilities worldwide, representing 121 treatment rooms, as of 2013, according to MEDraysintell’a Proton Therapy World Market Report.
