Dow’s Gamma Knife centre treated 2,500 patients since 2021

KARACHI: The Gamma Knife Radiosurgery Centre (GKRC) of Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) has treated around 2,500 patients with brain tumours, with an average yearly increasing rate of 96% till 2024, since it became operational in 2021, this emerged recently.

Dedicated neurosurgeons, radiation oncologists and other specialists at the centre—first facility of its kind in the public sector health settings in the country for patients with tumours, blood vessel malformations and nerve disorders reporting from across the country—are aspiring additional non-invasive treatment platform to reach more patients.

Dow-GKRC considered both by relevant experts and benefitted-patients a world-class treatment facility on an affordable cost had handled 176 patients in the last four months of 2021. “The number of treated patients increased to 651 in 2022; 725 in 2023; and 775 in 2024, while about 200 patients have been treated so far this year (2025) at the centre,” shared an official concerned, highlighting the ratio of the treated males and female patients as 6:4.

It was further learnt that the treated patients included 1,800 from Sindh, whose costs of treatment were borne by the Sindh government, in line with a declaration by Sindh Chief Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah that the provincial government will bear the entire cost of treatment of 500 deserving patients at the DUHS Gamma Knife radio surgery facility every year.

“We don’t have any long waiting list of patients seeking the radio surgery, but want to exploit the available facility at the maximum by attending more brain lesions cases from across the country,” the official sated, adding: “If this Dow-GKRC is provided with another similar or advanced technology platform it would be helpful in providing world-class care to patients further through a highly experienced team of neurosurgeons, radiation oncologists, physicists, and radiation therapists at a subsidised and affordable cost, or even free of cost, as the cases may be.”

Patients with brain disorder either approach to the facility directly or are referred by physicians and other health centres frequently, who undergo the treatment process involving detailed medical review, imaging scans, and precise treatment planning on a computer by the neurosurgeon, radiation oncologist, and the multidisciplinary team, noted another physician there.

A technical expert elaborated that in the long run the available Gamma Knife process due to its inbuilt system can take a longer time than what it takes for one surgery at present, but would not turn redundant.

Dr Muhammad Abid Saleem, head of the GKSR centre, told this scribe that the patients are usually treated in a single-day session. “We target the brain tumour very accurately without any conventional surgery, while after treatment the patients are sent back to homes the same evening,” he added.

“Under a referral network, including the digital devices of communication, we are getting patients from Sindh and its adjacent areas as well as Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” Dr Saleem stated, confirming the KP government-sponsored patients and other covered patients also report to GKRC and receive treatment free of cost. “Even for the self-paying patients we are more affordable in terms of cost against the private sector interventionists,” he highlighted.

The GKRC established in the DUHS Ojha campus is equipped with the Gamma Knife stereotactic radiosurgery, with the funding of the Sindh government, which can perform 700-900 radiation surgeries in a year. An expert committee reviews appropriateness of cases referred to Dow-GKRC.

News Report courtesy: Social Track, Karachi.