A few days ago, the President of the Nation, Alberto Fernández, and the Governor of Formosa, Gildo Insfrán, together with national and provincial authorities, officially inaugurated the building of the Nuclear Medicine and Radiotherapy Center “Pdte. Dr. Néstor C. Kirchner” (CEMENURNK), located on the grounds of the High Complexity Hospital in the capital of Formosa.
It is one of the most important and modern works in the northeast region, focused on the treatment and diagnosis of oncological diseases. It is integrated into the public health system through the National Nuclear Medicine Plan and an agreement signed between the National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA) and the Government of Formosa.
Regarding the latest generation equipment that the Center has, Gastón Benavídez, a specialist in Medical Physics of Radiotherapy, provided details.
“In this first stage of the Center, the radiotherapy part was inaugurated, which consists of two well-differentiated areas that are teletherapy and brachytherapy,” the specialist from Formosa began by explaining in statements collected by AGENFOR.
And he advanced by specifying that “in each of these we have high-tech equipment”, mentioning that “the equipment that was installed is from the Elekta brand, they are linear accelerators: one is the Versa HD model, which has a greater possibility of treatments and greater benefits if you will, and another one called Synergy”.
As he detailed, “the difference between one and the other is an imaging system, where with the first one more complex treatments can be done, since the patient can be monitored in positioning, which is very important in this type of therapy.”
While “with the other equipment you can do the standard treatments.”
On the brachytherapy side, he pointed out that “the Center acquired HDR equipment, with a high dose rate, consisting of a seed, a three-millimeter radioactive source, which is located inside this device and through different channels that are applied to patients, a route is made towards the cavity or interstitium where the applicators are placed and the dose is deposited, which is the purpose of this type of therapy”.
He went on to indicate that “the Nuclear Medicine part, which is the diagnosis of the Center and which is going to be inaugurated later, already has the necessary equipment, such as PET/CT and the cyclotron.”
In this sense, he pointed out that “through PET/CT and the injection of radiopharmaceuticals in the patient, images can be acquired that are complementary to radiation therapy.”
“With this, the doctor can more accurately detect tumor cells,” he added.
Finally, he stressed that “the most important thing regarding having inaugurated this Center in the province of Formosa is the fact that patients will no longer have to travel to other provinces, with all that that means” to carry out a treatment once morest pathologies. oncology.
This taking into account that “it is not only the patient’s own illness, but also (they will have) the accompaniment of the family, avoiding uprooting” and other issues such as economics, he concluded.
