PM inaugurates new Dept of Clinical & Radiation Oncology at SKMCH Peshawar

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan Friday inaugurated the new department of Clinical and Radiation Oncology at Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital (SKMCH) and Research Centre, Peshawar.

The department is equipped with two state-of-the-art, high energy Varian linear accelerators and a dedicated 4-D-CT simulator.

In a message on his social media account Twitter handle, released by the Prime Minister Office, the prime minister said, "I am so proud that this is the best facility with latest equipment in Peshawar. Patients from Afghanistan also coming here for treatment. This marks completion of second phase of SKMCH and Research Centre. The third phase work going to provide surgical services by 2020 Insha Allah.”

According to the tweet, Two High Energy Linear accelerators: (Vital Beam): Both linear accelerators are high energy machines, with cutting edge technology, fully capable of delivering precise radiotherapy to the tumor, while sparing the normal surrounding organs.

This results in higher cure rates and considerably reduces radiotherapy related side effects. The installation of two linear accelerators of identical configuration offers an important advantage in that treatment can continue uninterrupted in case of machine breakdown, since patients can be moved seamlessly from one machine to the other.