ISLAMABAD: The government in Pakistan's Punjab province has opened a coablation cancer treatment center in the eastern city of Lahore, the chief minister announced this week, with provincial authorities labelling it as the first such facility at a public sector institute in Pakistan.
The provincial government brought the facility to Pakistan from China where Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz had observed the advanced treatment method at the Xi Ji Tan & Hygea Medical Technologies.
She had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Chinese firm to bring the advanced cancer treatment and machinery to Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, during her visit to China in Dec. 2024.
“When I visited China, I was visiting a company there and they showed me a machine. They said that ‘this machine, without surgery, without operation, without anesthesia, without the radiation therapy that is done... this machine treats cancer’,” Nawaz said at a ceremony in Sargodha.
“That tumor, whether it is unfortunately in the lungs or in the kidneys, this machine treats that tumor.”
She inspected the coablation machine installed in the surgical ward of Lahore’s Mayo Hospital and met the center’s doctors, paramedics, and cancer patients undergoing coablation treatment, Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported.
Senior Radiologist Dr. Shehzad Kareem Bhatti briefed the CM about working mechanism of the coablation machine, which uses liquid nitrogen to freeze cancer cells at -198°C, followed by heating the affected tissue up to 83°C in a second phase to destroy targeted cancer cells.
“The procedure takes approximately 60 to 120 minutes and most patients are able to walk within a few hours post-operation. The cost of treatment per patient on the coablation machine was around Rs 1.6m,” he was quoted as saying.
The development comes days after Pakistan launched the country’s first Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination campaign, which is running from Sept. 15 till Sept. 27 and aims to protect millions from cervical cancer.
HPV is a very common virus that can cause cancers later in life, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Medical experts recommend protecting children from these cancers through the HPV vaccine.
Health Minister Mustafa Kamal said that over 5,000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer in Pakistan each year, adding that approximately 3,500 of them lose their lives to the disease, state media reported. The minister called on parents to ensure their daughters are vaccinated, emphasizing the importance of prevention to protect girls.
