Giving our patients a better chance with Radiosurgery
Your donations allowed us to acquire a True Beam linear accelerator with radiosurgery capability, at our Lahore hospital. But what does this machine do, and why did we need it?
Patients undergoing treatment at the Department of Clinical & Radiation Oncology at Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital in Lahore, now have much better chances of recovery. This is thanks to the new linear accelerator the department acquired earlier in March 2022.
What can a Linear Accelerator do?
With the addition of the new machine, the Clinical & Radiation Oncology Department at our Lahore hospital currently has five linear accelerators. That makes it the largest such department in the country, delivering more than 50,000 radiation therapy sessions each year.
Dr Tabinda Sadaf is the Department Head. She told us that the new linear accelerator is three times faster than conventional linear accelerators, with each treatment typically lasting less than two minutes!
“The True Beam linear accelerator has the capability to deliver radiotherapy with a very precisely focused radiation beam,” said Dr Tabinda. “With it, we’re able to treat cancer tumours as well as other abnormalities in the brain, neck, lungs, liver, spine and other areas.”
In fact, the machine’s real-time tumour tracking enables our doctors to provide highly conformal and targeted radiotherapy with a precision of less than 1mm, sparing normal tissues around the tumour. This is what we mean when we say it has radiosurgery capabilities.
What is Radiosurgery?
Radiosurgery is a very precise form of therapeutic radiology. Though it’s called radiosurgery, this treatment doesn’t actually involve surgery. In fact, it allows us to avoid surgery and incisions altogether.
Instead of having to cut out cancerous tissue, radiosurgery allows us to treat cancerous cells without incisions or openings. So why is radiosurgery called surgery? It’s because it’s a single-session radiation therapy treatment, that can create a result that’s similar to a surgical procedure.
Radiosurgery involves using extremely focused beams of radiation to destroy cancer cells, targeting their DNA! After the procedure, the cancer cells are unable to grow, and in time they shrink.
Thank you for your support
Thank you for your ongoing support. At Shaukat Khanum Hospital, we are committed to bridging the care gap and enabling equal opportunities for treatment, especially for Pakistan’s poorest.
In order to ensure our patients receive the best treatment available, we’re always striving to remain at the forefront of medical technology. Without your help, this would not be possible.
Find out how your Sadaqah and Sadaqah Jariyah funds vital medical equipment and how we use your Zakat ONLY for the direct treatment of needy cancer patients.