Thyrocare paves way for affordable cancer diagnostics with Nuclear Healthcare
16th June 2014, Mumbai:
Thyrocare Technologies Limited, a leading company in medical diagnosis, has diversified into in-vivo diagnosis through its new brand ‘Nueclear’. Nueclear Healthcare which began its operation at its Navi Mumbai facility, has now started its PET-CT centers at Delhi and Hyderabad. PET-CT is a combination of two advanced clinical imaging disciplines of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine for more accurate diagnosis.
Speaking on the development, Dr. Velumani, CMD of Thyrocare, said, "Affordability has always been the core driver of our business. The most advanced technologies which are available today are mostly under utilized due to high costs. For the same reason, the common man does not have an access to these facilities. We wish to bring about a balance in this scenario by utilizing these instruments to their ideal capacity thereby increasing the volumes and bring down the costs for our clients". Nueclear plans to install about 40 PET-CT machines in different cities across the country. For the requirement of radiotracer (18F-FDG), Nuclear Healthcare has also invested in a 12 GE PET Trace Medical Cyclotron at Navi Mumbai and has plans to put up 3 more in other parts of India.
PET-CT is a revolutionary technology which combines the functional imaging obtained by Positron Emission Tomography (PET) that depicts onto the anatomical imaging obtained by CT scanning. This technology will aid oncology and radiology professionals to diagnose the advancement and recurrence of various cancers and gauge the effectiveness of the treatment. The PET CT scan process will be carried out within a span of four hours, and the reports will be delivered within 48 hours.
Dr. B. Rajashekharrao, Director-Operations, Nueclear Healthcare added, "A cancer patient in India, today spends on an average Rs.20,000-25,000 for a PET-CT scan in a private diagnostic centre or a hospital. We want to serve cancer patients in their disease management by providing them a high-quality, reliable services at affordable costs". The PET-CT charges were fixed at Rs. 9999 by Nueclear at the time of the news release. Dr Velumani and Dr Rajashekharrao both had earlier worked in Bhaba Atomic Research Centre.
PET-CT, being one of the expensive tests in diagnosis is available sparsely in a few hospitals across India and it barely matches the demand going by the number of cancer patients in India. With the launch the new centers Nueclear, hopes to bridge this gap by offering cancer diagnostics at lowest possible charges in the industry. The expansion plan of Nueclear is to have PET-CT Franchisee centers operational in the cities of Raipur, Surat, Ahmedabad, Vadodra, Jaipur, Bangalore, Coimbatore and Chennai in a span of 3- 4 years.