A private hospital in Calcutta has introduced a new machine for radiotherapy treatment of cancer patients.

More patients can avail themselves of the treatment in a day because the machine gives more targeted radiotherapy in a short time, doctors at the hospital said on Wednesday.

The Halcyon E linear accelerator, which the Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals has started using, can provide radiotherapy treatment in two to three minutes compared to the 15-20 minutes taken by older linear accelerators.

A patient goes inside a linear accelerator machine for radiation therapy, a doctor said.

The Halcyon E is advanced in one more respect. The therapy is fully “image guided”, which means doctors will be able to see the exact location of the tissue where they intend to target the radiation.

A tumour can move 1-2cm because of various reasons such as breathing if it is in the breast or of if the urinary bladder is full one day and empty on another day, a doctor said. “The image guided radiotherapy (IGRT) will enable the

doctor to see the exact location of the tumour when the therapy is being administered.”

“The doctor can accordingly manipulate the direction of radiation and target the affected tumour, completely protecting neighbouring tissues,” said Tanweer Shahid, a radiation oncologist with Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals.

“In the older accelerators, we could give therapy to 60-70 people in a day. In the Halcyon E series machine, we can provide treatment to close to 100 people in a day,” Shahid said.

The Apollo Gleneagles Hospital had two linear accelerators. After the introduction of the Halcyon E series, one of the older accelerators has been decommissioned, a doctor said.

Prathap C. Reddy, the chairman of the Apollo Hospitals group, who attended the formal inauguration of the machine on Wednesday through videoconferencing from Chennai, said the hospital had made consistent progress in the field of cancer treatment.

“We have consistently improved in cancer. Patients not only from India, but also from abroad visit our hospitals for treatment,” he said.

An oncologist in the city said this was the first Halcyon machine being introduced in any hospital in Calcutta. If more hospitals procure the machine, it will benefit more patients, the oncologist said. “Patients have to endure a long wait to undergo radiotherapy. But a machine like Halcyon will reduce their wait.”