Cancer may well be a disease that would not scare a patient. If all goes well, Philips hopes to launch a breakthrough technology for treatment of the disease through chemotherapy, minus the side effects.

This means the ordeal that a cancer patient typically goes through would be cut out.

The healthcare division of Philips is working on technology that would help apply chemotherapy to specific tumor sites through high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) unlike on the entire body cells, in a typical procedure.

“We have been working on this for the past eight years. Through HIFU, the tumor sites would be heated up to 3- 4 degrees higher. The chemo (doxorubicin drug) would target and kill tumor cells only and also denatures the protein in the cell. We would initially launch the technology for breast and prostrate cancer in the next six to 12 months,” said Krishna Kumar, vice-president and business head, Philips Healthcare India.

The company is awaiting FDA approvals and this would follow by other cancer treatments as well, he said.

Right now, a patient registry is being maintained in association with seven global healthcare centers, including at the Jon Hopkins Centre, National Institutes of Health, to track the efficacy of the treatment.

He was in Hyderabad to launch the HIFU technology for treatment of uterine fibroid along with Apollo Hospitals.

“The future of medicine in our view will be image guided, non-invasive and without radiation. MRI – HIFU represents the convergence of these three principles,” he said adding this procedure can be performed on suffering women on an outpatient basis.

Apollo Hospitals is the first in Asia Pacific to introduce such technology. With the existing MRI set up in place, the Apollo group would have to invest around Rs 5.5 crore for the additional equipment.

“We are introducing the technology across six hospitals on a revenue sharing model with Philips,” said Prathap C Reddy, chairman- Apollo Hospitals group.

The technology will now be adapted in 17 odd other hospitals in the country in the next three to six months.