BENJAMIN Mkapa Hospital (BMH) is finalising procedures to begin offering radiation therapy, cancer treatment to control or kill malignant cells, which is normally delivered by a linear accelerator.
The hospital’s Executive Director, Dr Alphonce Chandika, noted here recently that the hospital was finalising plans to set up the radiotherapy service at its newly established Oncology Unit.
“So far, at least 400 cancer patients are receiving chemotherapy at our Oncology Unit. The hospital will soon introduce radiotherapy to cancer patients,” he said.
Radiation therapy may be curative in a number of types of cancer if they are localized to one area of the body.
It may also be used as part of adjuvant therapy to prevent tumor recurrence after surgery to remove a primary malignant tumor, for example, early stages of breast cancer.
Dr Chandika said radiation therapy will enhance cancer treatment service at the hospital’s Oncology Unit, saying that presently, the hospital offers chemotherapy, a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs.
He further informed that the hospital was finalising plans to start bone marrow transplant, a medical procedure performed to replace affected bone marrow with healthy bone marrow to treat sickle cell patients.
Dr Chandika said initially BMH will team up with Italy based University of Monza to set up bone marrow transplant service at the hospital, saying they were in final stages of putting up a blood bank which will facilitate bone marrow transplant.
Other diseases that bone marrow transplant can treat include blood cancer like leukemia or lymphoma and bone marrow diseases like aplastic anemia.
Dr Chandika further said the hospital will perform kidney transplant this month, saying that so far seven people have successfully undergone the lifesaving surgery at the public hospital since establishment of the medical service.
