Is India at par with the West in offering advanced cancer treatment ? Dr Sachin Almel

Dr Sachin Almel
Consultant medical oncologist, PD Hinduja Hospital

It is a common misperception that there is limited, or even worse inferior, treatment options available for cancer in India and that they are better outside the country.

While some may argue that there is a still a long way in terms of choices for cancer treatment available in India, I believe the picture is different and quite positive. There is not much difference in treatment offered in developed countries as compared to India. Our cancer treatment is at par with the treatment offered in other developed countries. As a matter of fact, the cost of treatment of cancer is priced much higher in developed countries than in India. This gives us an advantage over other countries for the overall advanced treatment options.Presently, most cancer hospitals in India offer all the treatments recommended by the National Cancer Co-Operative Network (NCCN) and healthcare professionals follow all the guidelines recommended by NCCN. There is certainly an emphasis on quick approvals and we are not lagging behind in advanced treatments.

In what can be termed as a key development for treating the disease, in 2018 India received the approval for using Immunotherapy in treating various types of cancer like kidney cancer, urinary cancer, breast cancer–triple negative, etc. Although we received the approval a little later than the West, the fact that it came within a year, is noteworthy.

Having said that, it is worth acknowledging that only generic research is happening in India, while the path-breaking advanced research takes place in western countries. Once these newer treatments are approved in India, we start using those new drugs for effective results.

What pushes our country behind is the survival rate of patients diagnosed with cancer because most seek medical intervention at a very late stage. According to some estimates, every year about 10 lakh new cancer cases get added in India; of this less than 30 per cent of these patients survive five years or longer after diagnosis. We need to work towards generating more awareness about the symptoms, tests and advantages of early diagnosis.

Going ahead, I believe, the treatment offered to patients will be more a combination of different therapies for a desired outcome. Say for example, targeted therapy and immunotherapy could be used together to reduce the adverse side-effects of a treatment procedure. Similarly, a combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy would be applied for more effective results. However, all these studies are under progress and newer drugs will be introduced to immunotherapy as and when it is approved. Nevertheless, the future of cancer treatments in India seems quite promising.