Cancer specialist Dr Ramesh Bilimanga addresses the news conference as Dr Jitendra Kumar Singh (right) looks on, in Patna on Thursday. Picture by Jai Prakash

Patna, June 30: Science of radiation oncology has made tremendous progress in the past two decades, said renowned cancer specialist Dr Ramesh Bilimanga, during a news meet at Mahavir Cancer Sansthan (MCS) in the capital today.

According to him, scientific advances in the diagnosis and management of cancer have altered the dismal outcome of the disease and cancer cure rate has seen a positive change during the past few years.

“The best part of the latest advancement is that facilities like linear accelerator and cyber knife are available in Patna too. After the installation of linear accelerator at Mahavir Cancer Sansthan, it has now become one of the advanced institutes of the country where all facilities of cancer treatment are available,” said Bilimanga, who is the director of Bangalore Institute of Oncology.

Talking about new equipment’s advantage over traditional therapy he said while radiotherapy causes irreparable damage to healthy cells, cyber knife and linear accelerator throw immensely focused radiation and just kill the cancer cells.

“In many cases, where surgery is impossible, cancer is successfully treated through cyber knife. Under the cyber knife method, robotic radio surgery is widely done for brain and spinal cord cancer. Under the method, the tumour can be targeted through different angles by which the body can be prevented from the harmful effects of radiation,” Bilimanga added.

Dr J.K. Singh, director, MCS said high-energy linear accelerator machine facility is available in select cancer treatment centres in the country.

He added that by this equipment both small tumour at a very early stage or a large tumour at a late stage of cancer could be cured.

Elaborating the advantage of the machine he said it has been further upgraded and can now help any kind of treatment.

“Its intensity can now be lowered or increased as per requirement. The intensity-modulated-radio-therapy facility is also present in this machine. It has the capability of destroying the tumour without damaging the nearby cells of the tumour. In this machine, stereotactic radio therapy and stereotactic radio surgery facility is also planned by which tumours of brain can also be targeted and treated completely,” Singh added.

“Inclusion of these facilities makes the equipment an advance-radiation machine. We can confidently say that no patient from Bihar, Jharkhand and other neighbouring states will have to go out for the higher treatment,” Singh said.

According to estimates, around 7 lakh persons get afflicted with cancer in India every year and number of cancer cases has seen a northward rise in Bihar where head, neck and lung cancer among males and uterus and breast cancer among women are most common.