After 25-year wait, Delhi’s Lady Hardinge Medical College opens radiation therapy facility

The Lady Hardinge Medical College has started its Radiation Therapy facility with the first radiation therapy treatment provided to a cancer patient on April 9. The therapy was provided using Brachytherapy equipment, a procedure used to treat certain types of cancer and other conditions.

It involves placing radioactive material inside the body and is also known as internal radiation. The procedure was carried out in the medical college’s newly constructed Radiation Oncology Block on April 9.

Hospital sources said the department of radio oncology was started in 1999 but couldn't become functional and has been started now. Prior to this, the department had been providing only OPD and chemotherapy services for cancer patients.

Medical Director Dr Subhash Giri said that with the new High Dose Rate Brachytherapy equipment on ground floor and Ctsimulator unit on the first floor of the block, the medical college will now be able to provide much needed radiotherapy services to the cancer patients.

“The modern radiotherapy techniques require accurate information about the tumor as well as surrounding structures during radiation planning for targeting the cancers. The Ctsimulator machine is used for image-based planning of highly conformal radiotherapy treatment which helps in targeting the tumor and sparing the normal structures,” he said.

The radiation therapy will be provided to patients suffering from cervical, uterine, prostate, breast and other cancers. The brachytherapy treatment is effective at destroying the cancer cells while minimizing damage to surrounding normal tissue.

Dr Giri said the new equipment was purchased at Rs 13 crore and will be a boon for poor cancer patients, who are not able to afford radiation therapy treatment at private hospitals.

“There are very few government hospitals with the radiation therapy facility and they have very long waiting times, during which their disease often progresses,” he said

He said a High Energy Linear Accelerator (LINAC) machine for External Beam Radiation Therapy (EBRT) will also become functional in LHMC’S Radiation Oncology Block for treatment of wider range of cancer patients in the coming days. A few days ago the new IPD block and the Accident and Emergency block were also made fully functional along with a 3 Tesla MRI system and a Central Laboratory in the IPD block.

Archive New block at Lady Hardigne Medical College.