More than one-and-half years after it was first commissioned and brought to KEM Hospital, patients will now be able to use the services of the PET scan machine.
More than one-and-half years after it was first commissioned and brought to KEM Hospital in Parel, patients will now be able to use the services of the advanced Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scan machine, which was inaugurated on Wednesday.
“Several patients suffering from cancer, cardiac illness, psychiatric illness will now be able to get a PET scan at KEM and that too at a subsidised rate of Rs3,000 to Rs5,000. A PET scan in a private hospital would cost anywhere between Rs10,000 and Rs30,000,” said Dr GH Tilve, head of department of nuclear medicine at the hospital.
Though the PET scan machine had arrived at the hospital in April 2007, it had been lying idle ever since. Initially, the machine was to be installed in the nuclear medicine department on the second floor. But the scan machine weighs 10 tonnes and authorities were doubtful if the heritage structure in which the nuclear medicine department is located could withstand such a massive weight. It took another four months to study the building’s structural stability.
Finally, a committee of representatives from Bhabha Atomic Research Centre decided to install the machine in the ground floor of KEM’s Orthopaedic centre opposite Tata Memorial Hospital. Dr Anil Kakolkar, chairman of Atomic Energy Commission of India, inaugurated it on Wednesday.
“The gamma camera and nuclear imaging have been activated while the PET scan component will be made functional within a week. For now, we plan to conduct eight to 12 scans every day,” said Dr Sanjay Oak, dean, KEM Hospital. Three doctors and six technicians would be in charge of the PET scan.”
“The scan is mainly used for early diagnosis of cancer as well as to detect the progress of treatment,” said Tilve. The cost of the machine was borne by the BMC and BARC, which will supply material needed for radiation. “PET scan helps in early diagnosis of cancer and heart, brain and gastro-intestinal ailments.”
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