Patients at the Acharya Harihar Regional Cancer Centre in Cuttack. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, Sept. 21: Patients will get high-end radiotherapy treatment at Acharya Harihar Regional Cancer Centre at less than 50 per cent of what it costs at private hospitals in the city.

The only state-run cancer hospital in the state will install two linear accelerators, an advanced device used in cancer treatment, by the first week of October.

The devices identify the damaged cells and apply radiotherapy properly to kill cancer cells without destroying the healthy ones, said a cancer expert.

Director of the institute Sushil Kumar Giri said: “The aim is to provide a state-of-the-art facility at the centre and make it affordable for the common man. Once it is installed, patients can avail themselves of the service at less than 50 per cent of what it costs at private hospitals.”

The two private hospitals in the city that have linear accelerators charge nearly Rs 4,000 for each session of radiotherapy, and a cancer patient needs 25 to 30 sessions on an average. All patients fail to afford the cost, and for them, the state-run facility will prove to be a boon.

Giri told The Telegraph: “One high-end linear accelerator and another low-end linear accelerator have reached us. Both will be installed by end of September or October first week.”

“A separate building with 10,000-sqft carpet area has been built for Rs 13 crore in adherence to the board’s norms. It is almost ready for installation of the linear accelerators,” Giri said.

The state government had provided Rs 44 crore (in addition to Rs 3 crore central government funds) to set up the separate building and install the two devices for radiation therapy.

An official of the centre said they had got the approval of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, a prerequisite to install the linear accelerators.

The 240-bed hospital at the centre caters to patients not only from the state, but also from Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bengal.

On an average, the hospital attends to almost 20,000 to 26,000 cancer patients every year. Among them, nearly 10,000 require indoor admissions, and around 20 to 25 per cent of them need radiotherapy.

At present, the centre provides radiotherapy with cobalt machines, but it is not as effective as linear accelerators, sources said.

An oncologist at the hospital said linear accelerators were required to apply radiotherapy most effectively on the cancer patients. “The accelerators deliver enough radiation to a spreading tumour and minimise the part of healthy tissue that get exposed to the radiation,” he said.

Giri said: “The two linear accelerators will be installed along with one computerised tomography (CT) simulator and computerised tomography (CT) scan,” he said.

While CT simulation is a process used by the radiotherapy team to determine the exact location and size of the affected area, CT scan is a computerised X-ray procedure that produces cross-sectional images of the body. The images are far more detailed than X-ray films and can reveal disease or abnormalities in tissue and bone.