(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Hamad Medical Corporation ( HMC) will be able to administer advanced nuclear medicines when the new facility for the Cancer Care Centre is completed, a senior official said Saturday.
Dr. Huda al-Naemi, executive director, Occupational Health and Safety, HMC told Gulf Times on the sidelines of the 6th Gulf Nuclear Medicine Conference that the corporation would soon have advanced equipment for nuclear medicine such as Positron Emission Tomography Magnetic Resonance Imaging (PETMRI) which, at present, is available only in very few countries.
The Gulf Nuclear Medicine Conference is being held in Doha for the first time.
Dr al-Naemi said nuclear medicine is used for the treatment of several diseases including cancer. She, however, pointed out that it is mainly used for detection of diseases and to identify the extent of a disease in a patient.
The official explained: "Nuclear medicine is the method of treatment through the use of radioactive materials inside the body of patients either by injection, inhaling or oral administration. This is used to cure several diseases especially cancers, like thyroid cancer."
She continued: "This treatment is used to cure a patient without surgery. This is more effective to cure tumours depending on the stage of the cancer. If it cannot be cured by this medicine, it is referred for surgeries and other treatments."
Dr. al- Naemi said this mode of treatment is practised in HMC. "However, it is done only at a certain level. Presently we have the facility only up to the level where patients, administered with radioactive materials can be sent home."
"In certain cases, the patient needs to be provided higher doses of nuclear medicine and cannot be released from the hospital as others can be affected by radiation. In Hamad, we do not have the facility for accommodating such patients. They are sent abroad for such treatment. This will be implemented in future when the new state-of-the-art facility for the cancer care centre comes up."
The official also said that the quality of the images, made available through nuclear medicine needed improvement. "The conference is discussing plans for enhancing the quality of images using nuclear medicine. We need to get the latest equipment in the field to ensure the quality of pictures. HMC will, in the near future, have several of these equipment including PETMRI," she said.
Dr. al- Naemi said that nuclear medicine used to be called unclear medicine but no more. "It was unclear even for healthcare providers some 30 years back. The idea is to have the material absorbed into the body of the patient and the patient will emit radiation. It is safe and is in use for more than 50 years as the amount of radiation is very limited," she added.
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