Jaslok brings ultrasound fibroid cure

Jaslok Hospital may have an answer to cure uterine fibroids.
An ultrasound machine, a first in the country according to doctors from the hospital, will treat fibroids without any cuts or stitches. Also, it will minimise the risk of losing the uterus.

Moreover, clinical trials are on to see if the machine is effective for treating tumours in the brain and liver, cancers of breast and prostate, and bone metastases.

At present, removing uterine fibroids involves a rigorous procedure starting with anaesthesia and hospital stay. ExAblate 2000, the machine, does away with all these. “It saves the patient from the painful trauma,” Dr WM Gedroye, consultant radiologist at St Marys hospital in London, said. Gedroye has treated over 500 fibroid patients with this technology.

The ultrasound energy passes through the layers of skin, muscle, fat, and other soft tissues, he said. “When high intensity ultrasound energy is focused on a small target, it raises the temperature of the tissue and destroys it.” The ExAblate 2000 combines Magnetic Resonance Imaging with ultrasound allowing the physician to detect the fibroid. Once it is detected, the machine targets the tissue with its ultrasound waves and destroys it.

The machine will reach Jaslok Hospital by next month. At present, the US, Singapore, and Japan uses the machine to treat fibroid patients. A session lasts up to three hours and no medicines are given before or after the surgery. The cost of treatment will go up to Rs1.5 lakh, a doctor said.

“If malignant tumours can be cured through this, patients will not require radiotherapy or chemotherapy. Treatment cost too will go down,” Dr Shrinivas Desai, director of the department of imaging and interventional radiology at Jaslok, said.