The Regional Cancer Centre (RCC) at JIPMER is all set to introduce facilities for bone marrow transplant (BMT) and has installed equipments required for the procedure. “We are waiting for the drugs and will hopefully get it operational in a month’s time,” JIPMER Dean and Director of the RCC, K S Reddy, said here on Friday.
Initially, the autologous transplant, in which the patient’s own bone marrow is used, would be put into operation to treat lymphoma and breast cancers. Allogenic transplant, which used the bone marrow of a donor, would be introduced later. The human leukocyte antigen typing required for an allogenic BMT was already in place at JIPMER as it was also used for kidney transplants.
Instruments worth `46 crore had been installed at the cancer centre at JIPMER equipping it with high energy linear accelerator with board imaging facility, newer branch therapy equipment, computed tomography simulator, ultrasound with Doppler facility and computerised radiotherapy.
The treatments, including high precision intensity modulated and image guided radioptherapy, were free of charge for poor patients. However, token charges would be levied for the high precision radiotherapy on patients who could afford it. An income certificate from the Revenue Department was needed for those who wanted to avail themselves of free treatment.
In the past one year, JIPMER had treated 3,662 cases of cancer. Around 2,500 of those patients were women among whom cases of breast cancer were on the rise. What was of concern was that 80 per cent of the cases were detected in stage II and stage III, while only 10 per cent cases are detected in Stage I, Reddy said.