The Radiology Department at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) will soon start operating the country’s first-ever CyberKnife, a robotic radiosurgery system used for treating tumours and other medical conditions.
By July, the CyberKnife being installed by the Patient Aid Foundation of JPMC, will be functional, said the JPMC Radiology Department head and CyberKnife project director, Prof Tariq Mehmood, while talking to the media on Thursday.
“The JPMC will be the first institution to provide robotic radiosurgeries to poor and needy patients free-of-charge and expects that patients will come from not only Pakistan but all around the world to avail this facility,” he said.
The senior radiologist mentioned that CyberKnife is also used to treat non-cancerous conditions like trigeminal neuralgia and functional disorders. Mehmood said that due to its precision, it does not have any side-effects and is also pain-free, with no needs for anaesthesia while patients can also be treated in day-care. He mentioned that there are 240 CyberKnife units worldwide but all are working on commercial basis and the cost of this treatment in the USA and UK ranges from $50,000 to $90,000.