Ceylinco Cancer Services Ltd, the pioneer of cutting-edge technology in cancer treatment in Sri Lanka’s private Cancer care sector, has announced that its new TomoTherapy Centre has treated 50 patients since its opening in October last year.
Among the patients treated at the TomoTherapy Centre were six Maldivian nationals, demonstrating the potential for attracting patients from countries in the region for advanced radiation treatment, the Centre said.
The TomoTherapy Centre is the only one of its kind in Sri Lanka and offers a new dimension in high precision image - guided radiation therapy for the treatment of many forms of cancer.
“The TomoTherapy Centre is performing above even our own expectations,” CHSL Chairman R. Renganathan said. “While our principal objective was to offer Sri Lankans the latest technology in radiation treatment in their own country, it is clear that the services of the Centre will also benefit people in neighbouring countries.”
TomoTherapy is an integrated, advanced form of 3-dimentional image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT). Because a patient’s anatomy can change from day-to-day, image guided radiation therapy helps doctors make immediate adjustments to allow for tumor movement or shrinkage, weight loss and other changes.
The TomoTherapy system allows clinicians to see what they plan to treat immediately prior to beginning each treatment fraction and ensures that the tumor will not be under-dosed, and that radiation exposure to surrounding tissue will be minimised.
The TomoTherapy Centre is the second radiation oncology unit set up by Ceylinco Cancer Services Ltd. (CHSL). It is equipped with the latest TomoHDTM treatment system from Accuracy Inc. (USA), the global pioneer in the field of TomoTherapy. It operates alongside CHSL’s first radiation treatment unit, opened in September 2007 with Sri Lanka’s first Linear Accelerator (Linac).
Both radiation treatment facilities are located in close proximity, at Park Street, Colombo 2; the TomoTherapy Centre at No 70, and the Linear Accelerator unit at No 60.
Besides the two radiation treatment units, Ceylinco Cancer Services owns and operates the Ceylinco Cancer Centre and the Ceylinco Diabetes Centre, also at Park Street, Colombo 2, offering comprehensive screening, diagnostic services and medical care. In its first five years of operation, the Ceylinco Cancer Centre dispensed more than 10,000 cancer treatments encompassing linear accelerator treatments, brachytherapy, radioactive iodine treatments and chemotherapy.