The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Diagnosis at your doorstep

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 08, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Diagnosis at your doorstep

By M. Dinesh Varma

CHENNAI, SEPT. 7. Chennai-based diagnostic facility Lister Metropolis is shortly launching a scheme that will bring basic tests such as blood sugar, X-ray, ultrasound and ECG to your doorstep.

Under the `Home Health scheme', a chain of 10 diagnostic centres networked to Lister Metropolis is being established in the city. The centres are located at Nungambakkam, Mylapore, Adyar, Anna Nagar, K. K. Nagar, Purasawalkam, Tambaram, Nanganallur, Velachery and Sowcarpet.

"We believe that the facility will be useful to the public, especially the elderly for whom repeated visits to a laboratory is an exhausting experience," said Sushil Shah, founder-chairman of Metropolis, the Mumbai-based diagnostic centre, which has stand-alone and partnered laboratories in New Delhi, Jaipur, Chennai, Bangalore, Kochi, Thrissur and Dubai.

Samples will be transported in a cold chain and the reports delivered at home. If required, the services of a physician will also be made available. The centre will charge a service fee of Rs. 50 for tests which cost less than Rs. 1,000 and offer the service free if the costs exceed that amount.

The centre is establishing a Rs. 20-crore modern diagnostic centre of excellence at Nungambakkam to offer over 1,300 types of basic to high-end clinical pathology, radiology and molecular biology tests.

PET imaging

The Nungambakkam facility, expected to be ready by October 2005, will be only the second centre in India to offer Positron Emission Tomography or PET imaging which is on the way to becoming the standard for early detection, at tissue-level, of breast, lung and colorectal cancers and melanoma. The only centre with such a facility is the Diwand Chand Aggarwal-Metropolis Imaging Research Centre in Delhi.

Clinicians are also finding PET scan critical for diagnosis of cancer relapse. It is also increasingly used for diagnosis of Coronary Artery Disease and Alzheimer's disease.

The PET scans provide images against radio-isotopes which have limited shelf-life of less than 12 hours. Establishing a Cyclotron isotope production facility is a prerequisite for PET scan equipment.

Talks are currently in progress on strategic sharing of Cyclotron and PET facilities with a private hospital. A Cyclotron production facility can serve five to six PET scan centres, said G.S.K. Velu, Managing Director, Metropolis.

The centre will offer the diagnostic tests at `reasonable rates' — 40 to 50 per cent lesser than rates charged by hospitals.

Lister Metropolis can be reached over phone number 52056666.

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