Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Centre at the Narayana Health City, has introduced the latest global technique ‘High Precision Radiotherapy’, to treat radiosensitive cancerous and non-cancerous diseases like thyroid cancer and some blood disorders.

Radiotherapy helps to shrink tumours by destroying the diseased cells without affecting the normal cells. CT scans also use a dose of radiation to visualize and diagnose various health conditions. While the conventional radiotherapy is a form of external beam radiation that delivers a fraction of the complete radiation dose to shrink or destroy the cancer tumours, a high precision radiotherapy delivers highly targeted treatment to blast the tumour and avoid the healthy tissues.

Conventional radiotherapy cannot save normal cells and side effects are more. Beyond an extent radiation dose cannot be increased and resistant cancer tumour cells will survive. ‘High precision radiation techniques are 1.5-2 times costlier than the conventional technique, but the side effects are less and ensure accuracy and better quality of life.

Treating about 10-15 cases in a month using the high precision technology, Dr Sandip Jain, radiation oncologist, Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Centre, explained, that the facility’s main focus is on safety and accuracy of treatment of the patient. In an era of globalization, whatever research happens in western countries, it reaches India within one year. Presently, this technology is the latest globally. We have successfully treated more than 1,800 patients till date.

To effectively destroy small tumours, a computerized imaging referred to as the Stereotactic Radiation Therapy is used. Another procedure which allows the radiation dose to match up more precisely to the three dimensional shape of the tumour is the Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy. To ensure that the radiation is being delivered to the intended region in millimeter accuracy, a CT scanner known as Image Guided Radiotherapy is used. The procedure is attempted in various tumour types, and significant promise is shown in ‘Head Neck and Brain tumours’. Evolution of technology for radiation delivery has made an attempt to increase safety and accuracy.

There is skepticism in the minds of people about the safety of radiotherapy which leads to fear and non-compliance to the treatment, by not taking the right decision at the right time. Awareness needs to be created about the safety of high precision radiotherapy to alleviate fears, said Dr Jain.