Not less than 355 successful fibroids procedures have been performed at Nordica’s Fibroid Care Centre, two years after the deployment of High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU), technology.
This is even as an international expert in experimental medicine, Professor Rosie Xing, has applauded Nordica Fibroid Care Center in Lagos, the only HIFU center in Africa after South Africa and Egypt, for revolutionizing women’s health with the help of HIFU technology.
Xing, during a tour of the Center, said HIFU is a brand-new, non-invasive treatment option for intestinal fibroids and adenomyosis, even as she disclosed that the technology is a trans-cervical fibroid ablation method that combines intrauterine ultrasound guidance with the well-established advantages of focused radiofrequency energy in a minimally invasive, uterus-preserving procedure.
Xing, who is also the managing director, International Academics, Marketing, and Sales, Chongqing Haifu Medical Technology Co. Ltd., averred that, she is impressed with the setup of the Nordica Fibroid Care Center in Lagos, Nigeria.
She said, “I am impressed. We have about 60 centres worldwide and 80 per cent of them are private centres. Dr. Ajayi’s centre stands out. This is the first center that actually has minimally invasive endoscopy technology on the one hand and non-invasive technology on the other hand. This is significant because it is about ensuring that doctors are able to choose the best treatment method to benefit patients the most.
“We belong to the HIFU family, and we transferred the technology and the service to the local team, so what you see here is completely functional up to international standards.
“This technology is completely digitized. Doctors no longer need the physical knife; what they use is a virtual knife with just a click of the mouse. If we develop this technology here in Nigeria with the rest of Africa, we will have cutting-edge medical technology, and we can transform the landscape on the therapeutic side for women’s general healthcare and for cancer patients.”
Xing disclosed that her company is doing a lot in collaborating with Nordica Fibroid Centre in transferring HIFU technology and the service to local medical teams and by extension taking care of patients in their hardest times.
Recall that the first stage of the training, which was recently held within the last three months, boasts of teaching a number of gynecologists who have excellent abilities in operating the HIFU equipment, employing it to provide efficient services to fibroid patients.
She affirmed that there is no question that further instruction in the use of the HIFU device would result in more competent treatment and care providers for Nigeria’s dreaded fibroid, adding that her company has sent Dr. Wu Panhong, a senior HIFU doctor from Chongqing Haifu Hospital to oversee the 2nd edition of the training which would last for the next two months.
Also speaking during the visit, the head of the Fibroid Care Center and the Medical Director, Nordica Fertility Center, Lagos, Dr. Abayomi Ajayi, noted that 355 patients had been successfully treated for fibroid at the center.
This emerging technology is very important for us in Africa because of the migration of our doctors abroad. We’ve done about 355 cases in two years, and this is one of the reasons we can continue to treat patients safely without utilizing too many doctors.
“For instance, we do not need anesthetics, and we have never transfused blood; all these advantages are just numerous, and I think this is just the right direction to go. There are advantages we have with this collaboration for training and capacity building, but we need more doctors to get on board. The idea is to act globally but think locally. We are going to continue this local training for our doctors so that we have many more doctors using this very important tool here,” Ajayi further revealed.
