THE Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission has a long history of serving the nation not only in the field of engineering, science but also medicine. It has played a pivotal role in setting up quality services in the field of both diagnostic and therapeutic medicine.

The PAEC has been the pioneer in nuclear medicine (NM) services in Pakistan besides providing efficient chemotherapy and radiation therapy (RT) facilities to patients.

It runs 20 medical centres nationwide with peculiar names like Kiran in Karachi, Inmol in Lahore, Nori in Islamabad etc. The names specify the diagnostic and treatment that it has to offer.

However, of late the PAEC has changed all of these names designating them as Atomic Energy Cancer Hospital (AEMC). This move may be to promote its cancer treatment facilities for which the PAEC has no need as their services are unmatchable to date. The move will undermine the PAEC’s services in the NM field.

The move also seems a little odd in the sense that its centres that still don’t have RT-related equipment are also termed as cancer hospitals. Nuclear medicine is a flourishing field whose impact is yet to reach the masses domestically and steps like this are certainly no help.

The world has moved on in developing NM going beyond molecular imaging and treatment. The PAEC needs to boost its NM facilities and not concentrate only on the word ‘cancer’.

Dr Zaheer Chiragh
Riyadh-KSA

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2018