Gokula Foundation (Medical) and Health Care Global Enterprises (HCG) have partnered to start the multi disciplinary state-of-art Gokula Curie Cancer Centre at an investment of Rs 10 crore for a 22 bed facility in Bangalore.

The centre is capable of undertaking extremely sophisticated radiotherapy treatments such as 3-D Conformal Therapy and IMRT, stated Dr Gurunath Kilara, director of the new facility.

The centre will have 6 MV linear accelerator with multi leaf collimator a remote physics planning system, High Dose Rate Brachytherapy machine and four bone marrow transplant rooms.

Dr Kilara stated hat the centre will have a psycho oncology service to address cancer patients and their families.

HCG is leading cancer service centre provider in the country. It owns and manages eight cancer centres that provide comprehensive care including surgical oncology, radiation and chemotherapy. Plans are underway to expand its cancer centres to 13 which are expected to cover Nashik, Vijayawada and Ranchi.

Presently, 50 per cent of the cancers are curable if detected early, 25 per cent can be effectively palliated by treatment and even in an advanced stage and remaining 25 per cent good palliative care and pain relief can be achieved. Existing facilities to treat cancer are grossly inadequate. There are 93 cancer centres in India and almost no quality care facilities are in tier 2 and 3 cities.

At the inauguration of the facility, SK Sharma, chairman, Atomic Energy Board, which highlighting the need of cancer centre to treat the new cases stated that, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board plans to draft a document envisaging the safety codes for using nuclear material in healthcare industry. It is getting fine tuned and will be ready within the next eight months. Two safety documents are already in place on the use of radiology in both diagnostic and therapeutic use.