Cancer cure: PGI faculty to train at Johns Hopkins

CHANDIGARH: PGI faculty will undergo an extensive training by Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine, to treat tumours through focused radiation.
Presently, the PGI does a procedure ‘ transarterial chemoembolization’ which is a minimally invasive therapy for treating cancer. Using the therapy, drugs are delivered through the catheter from the groin which has cancer-killing agents.The blood flow to the artery is cut off which supplies blood to the tumour. But the new concept has beta-emitting particles which supply radiation only to the cancerous cells.
The four-day annual conference of Indian Society of Vascular & Interventional Radiology hosted by department of radiodiagnosis, PGI, which commenced from Thursday had a presentation on the new concepts of treating cancer without surgery. The chief of interventional radiology at Johns Hopkins, Dr Jeffgesch Wind, deliberated on the technology. “There is a new drug which has been developed at Johns Hopkins with the help of Indian collaborators for the treatment of cancer. The PGI has already trained one of its faculty in interventional oncology. We will train additional faculty for pinhole drug induction to treat the cancer without affecting the surrounding organs,” said N Khandelwal, head of the department of radiodiagnosis, PGI.