“Is that me?”asked Sinai Kikan on being presented with a portrait by his team of doctors and nurses. The parting gift - a sketch of his face - marked a new journey for the eight-and-a-half-year-old boy and his family from Jodhpur. He was the first child to be treated with proton beam therapy for brain tumour at the recently-launched Apollo Proton Cancer Centre (APCC).
In a treatment course spanning six to seven weeks, with 30 sittings, five times a week, Sinai underwent proton therapy for brain tumour - craniopharyngioma - at APCC. Thursday signalled the completion of his treatment and brought to an end their two-month-long stay in the city.
“He is the first child to be successfully treated with proton beam therapy in India/South Asia after APCC was launched in Chennai last month,” said Rakesh Jalali, medical director and head of Radiation Oncology, APCC.
“This is one of the common paediatric brain tumours. It was close to the optic nerve and the pituitary gland. He had a surgery last year in Mumbai. But due to the location, it was not possible to completely remove the tumour. The treatment of choice after surgery is radiation therapy,” he said.
Conventional radiation therapy is given with photons that also gives good results, he said, adding: “Because of the way it is given, it sometimes goes to the surrounding critical structures. Hence, this was an excellent indication for the most modern and highly precise form of radiation therapy - proton beam therapy. He came to Chennai in December and after a thorough plan started on proton beam therapy.”
He was taken up as among the first patients because he has 95% to 98% chance of complete cure for the rest of his life, Dr. Jalali noted. “More importantly, because of the way we have treated, there was virtually no dose or very little dose that has gone to the adjacent normal brain tissue which otherwise is a major therapeutic challenge in our practice. It is critical to spare the radiation dose to the optic apparatus and structures in the brain that control intelligence, cognition and growth as he is a growing child,” he explained.
The greatest advantage of proton beam therapy is not only that it ensured cure but also high quality of cure, he added.
Sinai, the doctor, said, took the treatment well. Doctors will follow up every three to six months initially and then every year for five to 10 years.
Lucky, his mother said, they had heard about proton therapy being available abroad. “It was our surgeon in Mumbai who told us that it was upcoming in India at Apollo,” she said. His father, Stanley, added that Sinai did not feel any discomfort or pain during the treatment and was hale and hearty.
For Sinai, it was an eager wait to get back home. “He is really happy to go back home. He has not missed any of his class examinations and will appear for his final exams too,” Ms. Lucky added.
