Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, on Thursday, inaugurated the Nuclear Medicine Block at Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC) in Shimla.
The facility would enable patients to access advanced Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scan services within the state in the government sector and would reduce the need to travel outside for such diagnostics, he said.
Speaking on the occasion, the chief minister said that this is the first facility of its kind. He further said that the PET scan facility enables early detection of diseases at the metabolic and molecular levels. Unlike conventional imaging modalities such as CT and MRI, which identify structural changes at later stages, PET technology detects physiological alterations at a much earlier stage. “The facility would play a vital role in the staging and restaging of cancers, evaluation of treatment response, detection of recurrence and prognostication. He said that it is widely used in the diagnosis and management of various malignancies, including brain tumours, head and neck cancers, thyroid carcinoma, lung carcinoma, pleural malignancies, thymic tumours, esophagogastric carcinoma, gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GIST), breast carcinoma, colorectal carcinoma, as well as urological and testicular malignancies,” he said.
“The present state government remains committed to introducing high end technologies in the health sector. Recently, I have inaugurated a new three Tesla MRI machine at this premier health institution. In the coming times, we will invest over ₹3,000 crore to upgrade technology across all medical colleges and other health institutions in the state, with the aim of providing affordable, world-class healthcare services at the doorstep of the people,” he added.
He also announced ₹8 crore for establishing the SPECT-CT scan machine at IGMC Shimla.