UCH requires N251m to buy cancer treatment machine – CMD

The University College Hospital, Ibadan, Oyo State, has said it will require about N251m to purchase a cancer treatment machine, which will give succour to people suffering from prostate cancer, breast cancer and other types of the disease, without side effects.
The Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Prof. Temitope Alonge, disclosed this during the celebration of the World Cancer Day in Ibadan.
He appealed to all Nigerians to come to the aid of the hospital by helping to raise the fund.
Alonge said the UCH needed the sum of N5billion to upgrade its equipment and complete its ultra-modern Cancer Centre, adding that it was regrettable that about 70 per cent of cancer patients in Nigeria sought medical attention after the disease might have become full blown.
He said, “The machine is called Brachytherapy. When you do chemotherapy through the blood stream, it goes through the entire body before settling down at the site where it is needed. But we have gone beyond chemotherapy. We now have nanochemotherapy, where the drug will go round the body at no harm and break open at the site where it is meant to work.
“But the Brachytherapy machine is like a radiation, which identifies the location. It will locate the exact cancer and kill the cell. This brachy system is a targeted treatment that allows for high local concentration of radiation wall, which does not affect the other tissues around. A lot of big men in Nigeria with prostate cancer go abroad to receive treatment using this machine. Here, they stand the risk of not having erection after prostatectomy. But with brachy, technically, the man can still perform.
“Cancer is a non-communicable disease that threatens life all around the world. In Africa, when someone has cancer, it is like a death sentence. This is so because of poverty, lack of education about the disease and lack of access to adequate medical care.”