Ground-breaking TomoTherapy Centre celebrates eighth anniversary
Ceylinco Healthcare Services Ltd. (CHSL), the pioneer of cutting-edge radiation treatment for cancer in Sri Lanka’s private healthcare sector, has announced it surpassed the 10,000 patients milestone just as its TomoTherapy Centre, still the only facility of its kind in Sri Lanka, celebrated its eighth anniversary.
In the past decade, CHSL has successfully administered radiation therapy via a Linear Accelerator at the Ceylinco Radiation Treatment Centre and via its TomoTherapy Centre, both located at Park Street, Colombo 2.
Currently used by more than 30 oncologists at the Ceylinco TomoTherapy Centre, TomoTherapy is preferred by clinicians, as it allows them to see what they plan to treat immediately before beginning each treatment fraction, and ensures that tumours are not under-dosed, and that radiation exposure to surrounding tissue is minimised. Succinctly put, this treatment method ensures that patients are exposed to shorter beam times with better targeting of tumours, the Centre said.
In the past eight years TomoTherapy has been used in the treatment of a wide variety of cancers, especially breast, abdominal, lung, and prostate cancers. The machine also performs ultra advanced and precise treatments, for brain lesions.
TomoTherapy is an integrated, advanced form of 3-dimentional image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT). Because a patient’s anatomy can change from day-to-day, image-guided radiation therapy helps doctors make immediate adjustments to allow for tumour movement or shrinkage, weight loss and other changes. It also combines Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT) with the accuracy of computed tomography (CT) scanning technology, all in one machine.
The Centre broke new ground in Sri Lanka when it performed the first Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy (SBRT) treatment in the country in its first year of operation.
A wholly-owned subsidiary of Sri Lanka’s leading life insurance company Ceylinco Life, CHSL’s two radiation treatment units are the most experienced and affordable private cancer treatment centres in the country.
CHSL has upgraded its Radiation Treatment Centre with the acquisition of a new Linear Accelerator from Varian Medical Systems, a global leader in Radiation Oncology. The latest Clinac® iX linear accelerator replaced the older unit, which when commissioned in 2007, was the first linear accelerator in the country.