Nueclear, GE Healthcare join hands to fight cancer

MUMBAI: Nueclear Healthcare Ltd (NHL), a division of Thyrocare Group and GE Healthcare today announced a strategic partnership to establish a network of 120 molecular imaging centres to control the rapid growth of cancer incidence in India.

These molecular imaging centres, which will be equipped with 120 advanced GE Discovery PET/CT imaging systems and 12 GE PET Trace Medical Cyclotrons, will produce glucose (FDG) to aid the early detection.

GE Healthcare & NHL expect to put in place the network of 120 centres by 2015 in 3 phases, a company statement said here.

With about 2.5 million cancer patients, the disease is one of the major causes of deaths in India. One million patients are added every year and the number is feared to grow five-fold by 2025, which is why the Indian Council of Medical Research ( ICMR) had earlier urged the Centre to make cancer a notifiable disease.

Cancer can be treated and controlled, if detected early - in stages I or II, it said.

However, over 70 per cent of cancer is detected at a very late stage in India, when the treatment is less effective and costly.

While low awareness is one significant reason, unavailability of early cancer detection facilities and availability of experts is the other significant reason.