PESHAWAR, March 22: A majority of patients visiting the Institute of Radiology and Nuclear Medicines (Irnum) in connection with different investigations prescribed by doctors happen to be under wrong impression that they have contracted cancer.

Once they enter the Irnum, they start thinking they would be treated for cancer as Irnum was exclusively built for the treatment of carcinomic patients, said Irnum director Dr Mohammad Ayub Khan.

According to him, they offer a battery of medical tests apart from giving treatment to cancer patients which was the main reason that patients were being sent here for investigative needs.

“Last year, we received 14,613 patients referred by different surgeons and physicians for investigations, while the number of diagnosed cancer patients was only 4,035 which is a tell-tale example of the fact that most of the patients coming here are not cancer patients but needed investigations,” said Dr Khan.

“Once a young 22-year-old patient was referred by an orthopaedic surgeon for a test called bone scan. He was literally crying. When I asked him why he was crying, he replied that he had got cancer that was why the doctor sent him here for treatment,” said a technician at Irnum.

He said he had to console the patient and convince him that he had been sent here just for the purpose of investigations and that he would go back to the same orthopaedic surgeon for treatment once his test was done.

Established in 1974 under the Atomic Energy Commission of Pakistan’s strategy to use nuclear facility for peaceful purposes, it had got two separate departments: (i) nuclear medicines (ii) radiology. The former deals in investigation, while the latter provides treatment facilities to the cancer patients.

“Only yesterday, an electrical engineer brought his wife for thyroid scan, which a general surgeon had advised her. The engineer was much worried because the moment he was sent to Irnum, he had assumed that his wife had got cancer,” said a nuclear physician.

He said he gave lecture to the engineer for almost an hour to convince him that his wife had been referred here only for the sake of investigation by the surgeon and there was nothing to worry about.

“Some of the patients sent here are diagnosed to have cancer but their number happens to be very small. Secondly, some of the patients are diagnosed to have breast cancer or thyroid glands but they are hundred per cent curable,” said Dr Ayub Khan, adding that they do not facilitate cancer patients directly but only referred and diagnosed patients of cancer are given radiotherapy here.

According to him, after the diagnosis of the patients, they are given a choice to get treated at Irnum or go back to the doctor who had seen and referred him/her here.

“Once my elder brother was referred to Irnum by a hepatalogist to get a liver scan done from here. On entering the Irnum, he started weeping and praying to God Almighty to save him from the fatal ailment of cancer. I told him, time and again, that he had not got cancer but the hepatologist had referred him to see if his liver was affected,” said a medical officer at Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar.

According to the doctor, the health of his brother deteriorated rapidly because it had been ingrained into his brother’s mind that he had got cancer. Then, the ignorant people visiting our home to enquire after the health of my brother, used to recite verses from the holy Quran on his bedside. He became dead sure that he was suffering from cancer. In the process, he stopped eating and ultimately died last month, the doctor deplored.

Many oncologists and nuclear physicians have expressed concern over this attitude of patients and asked the general practitioners, physicians and surgeons to let the patients know that they were being sent to Irnum only to be diagnosed. The responsibility also rests with the general public who do not follow the advice of their doctors seriously and believe in hearsay.