KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah inaugurated on Wednesday the first free cancer scanning facility, PET CT Scan, at SIUT’s Mehrunnisa Medical Centre, Korangi, Karachi. Positron Emission Tomography (PET) CT Scan is a major diagnostic tool for the cancer population as it helps the doctors towards detection, diagnosis of cancer and its stages, enabling them for prompt and effective management of the disease. PET CT has been operating since December 2016 and to date 105 procedure have carried out. Speaking on the occasion, the CM said that cancer is a major health issue all over the world and this facility will provide the much needed service for diagnosis of cancer patients in a public sector hospital. Mr Shah while lauding the services of Professor Adib Rizvi and his institute for the ailing humanity said that this is another achievement of SIUT to provide free medical healthcare facility by installing PET/CT and Cyclotron facility at its Korangi Centre. Director SIUT, Prof. Adib Rizvi said that in the last decade some 20,000 patients of bladder, kidney, prostate and adrenal malignancies were registered at SIUT’s Hanifa Suleman Dawood Oncology Centre. He pointed out that the treatment of these patients includes 28,000 major cancer surgeries, 51,990 radiotherapy, 26,474 chemotherapy and over 2,335 brachytherapy services provided free to the patients. The total out-patient visits numbered 162,116.