BARC produces compound to help detect some cancers and Parkinson’s

“The compound octreotide is attached to an isotope and is introduced to the body intravenously in order to detect the cancerous cells. For years we have been importing this compound from western countries. In the past three and a half months,we have had excellent diagnostic results using the octreotide prepared by the scientists at BARC,” said Dr B A Krishna,head,Nuclear Medicine department,Bombay Hospital. “Combined with chemotherapy,this radiolabelling process will have maximum impact. Now with easy access to octreotride,a treatment which would earlier roll into lakhs will now cost only Rs 50,000 – 60,000,” he said.

The DaT scan done to diagnose Parkinson’s disease and HYNIC-TOC scan done to diagnose endocrine cancers have been using the locally prepared octreotide. Krishna said that in this phase of clinical trials,nine patients of Parkinson’s disease and 8 patients of neoroendocrine cancers have been diagnosed so far.

At present,Bombay Hospital is the only hospital in the city to have access to the radiopharmaceutical. However,Dr M R A Pillai,head,radiopharmaceuticals division,BARC,said that they are planning to mass produce the material and distribute it across 220 nuclear medicine centres across the country.

“It took us about two years to successfully create the compound after which it took about two months to get clearance. Now that we have had a good success rate in the trial phase,we hope to distribute it to hospitals in the next seven to eight months,” he said.