Sunday 15 / December / 2024
Muscat: Sultan Qaboos Comprehensive Cancer Care and Research Centre received and treated as many as 4,000 patients during the first year since its inception.
The centre attended to 23,956 patients and offered integrated medical consultancy to the patients in its outpatient clinics at the hands of nationals who have master international expertise in treating cancer tumours.
Since its opening in July 2021 to June 2022, the centre provided 3,619 radio sessions, provided 4,757 chemical treatment doses and conducted 262 surgical operations.
The units of the centres were operated in a gradual manner to ensure the safety of patients, harmonise the medical, laboratory, pharmaceutical and radiological electronic systems and synchronise them with the central scheme of services.
Since the start of operations at the centre till the end of June 2022, the visits to centre’s departments were as follows: 37.8 percent visits to the breast cancer programme, 26 percent to the alimentary system programme, 16 percent to the head, neck and chest programme, 7 percent to the urinary tract programme, 6.8 percent as rare tumour cases, 3.7 percent as gynaecological tumour cases and 37 as instances of services at palliative care programme.
On the preventive side, the centre’s genome section offered genetic counselling services to 468 patients (September 2021- June 2022). The Counsellor briefs the patients about the results of diagnosis, which is conducted through the use of modern devices that register genome count and nuclear serialisation to determine hereditary modifications that cause cancer.
The centre launched a number of advanced services for the treatment of cancer patients, including treatment with the CyberKnifeS7 radiosurgery device, the first of its kind in the region, which was used to treat a number of patients with small cancers in the brain and thoracic and having Trigeminal neuralgia.
The radiotherapy department launched new radiotherapy services for breast cancer called Partial Breast Irradiation And (Hypo-SIB), which contributes to shortening the duration of treatment and lowering the treatment cost.
The surgical department and the advanced endoscopy unit were also provided with the latest equipment to enable the surgical team to perform complex, high-precision operations, including laparoscopic operations.
The surgical team performed esophagectomy surgery laparoscopically fully for the first time in Oman.
The advanced endoscopy unit uses the double balloon endoscopy for first time in Sultanate, which is one of the most important procedures for examining and performing non-surgical interventions for the small intestine, and helps diagnose and treat intestinal bleeding, small intestine tumours, small intestine ulcers and sclerosis of the lining of the small intestine. The unit has performed 720 different types of endoscopy procedures since its commissioning in November 2021 until July 2022.
Since October 2021, the laboratory has started for the first time in the Sultanate Comprehensive Genomic Profiling of tumour tissue, which identifies the patient’s genetic mutations that cause the growth of cancerous cells and determines the most appropriate treatment for the case in a record time.
The genetic guide interprets the results of tests conducted in laboratories with new generation genome technologies, such as quantitative genome detection, nuclear sequencing and qualitative detection, to identify genetic changes that cause cancer.
