GE introduces latest health care equipment

by L. S. A. Wedaarachchi

Sri Lanka is experiencing an epidemiological transition of communicable diseases to non-communicable diseases. Lifestyles such as smoking, food habits, lack of exercise and the increased incidence of diabetes and obesity are the major contributors to these diseases.

GE Healthcare Vice President Sales Dillip Sawhney said that more than 50 per cent of the cause for death from diseases are from non-communicable diseases such as Coronary Artery Disease and Cancer.

"The health care industry has recognised that taking preventive measures early makes sense. If we act now we can deliver on the tremendous promise of medical discovery.

We can create a world in which technology will enable doctors to detect and treat disease at its earliest stages, often before symptoms appear. We can have a system where consumers can understand the cost and quality of healthcare and make informed choices.

We can make Sri Lanka a place where people live longer, and lead fuller and more productive lives," he said.

Diagnosing the disease at the earliest possible stage, when there can be many treatment options, is better medicine. It also makes simple economic sense.

Today, 70 to 80% of the resources in health care are devoted to managing symptom-based, advanced disease. Shifting resources to "early" health and developing technologies that allow healthcare providers to diagnose disease at the earliest possible stage, when there can be many treatment options, is better medicine.

Currently, patients with cardiac disease have about a 45% chance of survival if treatment begins at the onset of symptoms. An "early health" model made possible by advances in diagnostic tools such as cardiac biomakers, non-invasive diagnostic imaging, targeted therapies and IT-based disease management has the potential to nearly double the survival rates from cardiac disease. Applying these tools and identifying cardiovascular disease early can lower healthcare costs.

Similarly, costs for late-stage treatment of breast cancer (stage four) can be five to six times higher than treatment following early discovery in the stage one. Survival rates associated with early discovery and treatment are nearly triple those of the late-stage.

Effective predictive and early screening solutions provide information that enables physicians to intervene earlier, before breast cancer advances on its deadly course.

GE Health Care's latest equipment which enables early diagnosis have been brought to Sri Lanka almost simultaneously with the launch globally, he said.

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