Regular health checks are key: Apollo Hospitals chairman Non-communicable diseases (NCD) are conquerable, and the aim is to stop NCDs by bringing in awareness and health checks, Prathap C. Reddy, executive chairman of Apollo Hospitals Group said. Speaking at the inauguration of a digital PET-CT at Apollo Proton Cancer Centre (APCC) on Monday, he expressed concern that NCDs were growing at a rapid rate. “The World Economic Forum predicted that 80% of all deaths will be due to NCDs such as diabetes, heart diseases, strokes, cancer and infections,” he said. He pointed out that now many persons died of myocardial infarction at a young age, and studies have shown that genes followed by environment were important factors for NCDs. “Our aim is to stop NCDs by bringing awareness. The first thing to do is to know what is the state of your health. Every individual should check the state of their health to control and eradicate NCDs. We need to bring health checks and awareness,” he said. Dr. Reddy said he continued to appeal to Health Ministers and the Prime Minister to increase the health budget from 1% to 3%. Noting that the digital PET-CT installed at APCC was the first unit in South Asia, Vivek Kanade, executive director, Siemens Healthineers India, said accurate diagnostics was the first step for impacting patient outcome. The equipment used for diagnostics was extremely important for accuracy. The level of details provided by the digital PET-CT scanning machine allows doctors to more accurately stage the disease and provide patients with a treatment regimen that achieves better outcomes, a press release said. Suneeta Reddy, managing director, Apollo Hospitals Group, spoke. Rakesh Jalali, medical director and head - Radiation Oncology and Sumati, head, Nuclear Medicine of APCC were present.