Apollo invests Rs 75 crore on ASCH with Cyberknife robotic facility

6 Feb 2009

Corporate healthcare pioneer Apollo Hospitals has invested Rs 75 crore on setting up a speciality cancer hospital in the heart of the city. The new Apollo Speciality Cancer Hospital (ASCH) houses a Rs 35 crore cyberknife robotic radio surgery system, which is designed to treat tumours anywhere in the body with sub-millimetre accuracy.

With the incidence of cancer on the rise, ASCH is one of the few hospitals in India equipped to provide 360-degree cancer care, Apollo Hospitals Group executive chairman Dr Prathap C Reddy told reporters here on Friday, after unveiling the CyberKnife® at the ASCH.

While patients undergoing cyberknife treatment would have to spend double of what they would spend otherwise, the biggest advantage is the procedure can be completed in a week's time. Other procedures typically take about seven weeks. Moreover, cyberknife also does not trigger any side effects, Dr Reddy said.

Elaborating on patient benefits, ASCH senior consultant radiation oncology Dr Sanjay Chandrasekar said it offers significant benefits. Many of the complications associated with other conventional cancer therapies are minimised or eliminated by the CyberKnife® system. It can be used to treat tumors previously considered inoperable and most CyberKnife® treatments can be performed even on an outpatient basis.

Additionally, it is possible to treat multiple tumours at different locations in the body during a single treatment session. Patient normally experiences dramatic pain relief after the CyberKnife® treatment, he added. Apollo proposes to expand this treatment option in couple of other cities such as Hyderabad and Delhi.

A CyberKnife® procedure positions a patient automatically on the treatment table. Sans anaesthesia, the procedure is painless and non-invasive. "The treatment, which generally lasts between 30 and 90 minutes, typically involves the administration of between 100 and 200 radiation beams delivered from different directions, each lasting from 10 to 15 seconds," ASCH senior consultant radiation oncology Dr P Mahadev Potharaju added.

The advanced technology behind CyberKnife® uses real-time image guidance technology and computer-controlled robotics to deliver an extremely precise dose of radiation to targets, avoiding the surrounding healthy tissue and adjusting for patient and tumour movement during treatment. It is developed by Dr John R Adler MD, professor of neurosurgery and radiation oncology at Stanford University Medical Centre.

Cost estimate of cancer treatment at Apollo Hospitals

Source: The Economic Times