BENJAMIN Mkapa Hospital (BMH) through its Oncology Unit plans to begin offering radiation therapy as a cancer treatment method that controls or kills the disease’s malignant cells.
Making the revelation here recently, the Hospital’s Executive Director, Dr Alphonce Chandika, said that plans are underway for the 400-bed institution 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,” further said the Executive Director.
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.
Expounding, Dr Chandika noted that radiation therapy will enhance cancer treatment service at the Hospital’s Oncology Unit, adding that presently, the Hospital offers chemotherapy- a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs.
He further informed that the institution was finalising plans to start bone marrow transplant, a medical procedure performed to replace bone marrow with healthy bone marrow, to treat sickle cell patients.
Dr Chandika further pointed out that the Hospital will also team up with Italy-based University of Monza to set up bone marrow transplant service at the institution, saying that current they are finalising to put up a blood bank that will facilitate bone marrow transplant.
Other diseases, which bone marrow transplant can treat include blood cancers like leukemia or lymphoma and aplastic anemia.
The medic said the Hospital will perform kidney transplant in this January, adding that so far, seven people have successfully undergone the lifesaving surgery at the institution since its establishment.
