Int’l experts on liver, colorectal cancer to speak PUNE: The Centre for Advanced Gastrointestinal Oncology (CAGO) under Ruby Hall Clinic's Kamalnayan Bajaj Cancer Centre is organising a two-day seminar on ‘Oncology – current trends – Update 2010 on Colorectal and liver cancers’ from Saturday.   The event is aimed at acquainting doctors with advanced technologies, particularly in gastrointestinal cancer, Dr Minish Jain, Organising Committee Chairman told reporters on Thursday.   “Owing to the changing lifestyle and unsuitable dietary habits, there has been a four-fold rise in liver cancer and an almost five percent rise in colorectal cancer in the past few years,” Dr Jain said adding that the intake of non-fibrous foods is the major reason behind it.   Surgical oncologist Dr Gajanan Kanitkar cautioned that anaemic patients, especially after 50s, should be checked for gastrointestinal cancer.

In a breakthrough which may pave way for an effective treatment of inoperable cancers, scientists at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre have developed radio pharmaceuticals, which they claim can be used for curing skin and liver tumours besides alleviating rheumatic arthritis.   "A research carried out in BARC in collaboration with few hospitals in the country has shown Lutetium-177 (Lu-177), Yittrium-90 (Y-90) and Phosphorus-32 (P-32) as very effective therapeutic radionuclides (radio pharmaceuticals) that can be used in the treatment of cancers of liver, skin and in non-cancerous maladies such as rheumatic arthritis and haemophilia," Meera Venkatesh, Head, Radio pharmaceuticals Division told PTI.   Lu-177, with great potential in treatment of neuro- endocrine tumours, has advantages like shorter range of tissue penetration making it an ideal candidate for radiotherapy of smaller, soft tumours.

PUNE: The Family Welfare Organisation (FWO), Bombay Engineers Group (BEG) and Centre, Kirkee organised cancer detection camp for Bombay Sappers’ women members at Navrang Hall from July 5 to 7.   The function was inaugurated by the FWO President BEG, Simmi Talwar, while AFMC, Gynaec, Colonel A K Srivastav gave the guest lecture. 13 doctors from BEG, Military Hospital, Kirkee and AFMC, Dept of Gynaec and Obs participated.   Awareness lectures by Medical Officer, Lt Col Mamta Acharya were also held. The camp was organised by Depot Battalion with support of SMO and PSM Specialist Col V K Wankhede.

PUNE: There has been almost 18 per cent rise in efficiency in diagnosis of cancer by using the Digital Image Processing technique for analysing cancerous cells provided by Ruby Hall Clinic, technical institute Vishwakarma Institute of Information Technology (VIIT), Pune said.   VIIT has established a Centre for Excellence in Research and Development (CERD) on its campus. It has a special advanced visual computing laboratory, where visual computing of cancer samples sent by Ruby Hall clinic is analysed using Digital Image Processing technology.   “We have Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Ruby Hall Clinic to do analysis of real data, with focus on cancerous cells. We have the MoU since last two years, and in these years we have seen accuracy in desired results increased by 15-18 per cent,” Dean, Research and Development, and professor, Computer Engineering Department, VIIT, Prof A S Abhyankar said.

Saving the endangered medicinal plant   Mappia from being eroded in forest patches and encouraging farmers to cultivate the plant as an inter-crop is the latest mission green colleges have taken up.       Nothapodytes nimmoniana (Mappia foetida) locally known as Narkya or Amruta is an endangered   plant species naturally distributed in the Western Ghats. It is the most convenient source for large-scale production of camptothecin (CPT) – a promising anti-cancer compound.   Considering over exploitation of the tree, the project has been jointly initiated by Pune's Garware College, Sirsi's College of Forestry,   Bangalore's University of Agricultural Sciences, Dapoli's Dr Balasaheb Sawant Konkan Krishi Vidypeeth, and RANWA Department of Biotechnology, with Government of India supporting the project. During this three-year project, scientists will focus on multi-location trials for cultivation of the plant species.