UK tie-up helps improve childhood cancer survival rates in India

A collaboration between a British university and Indian institutions is helping improve the survival rates associated with childhood cancer in India.

The collaboration between the University of Manchester and the Tata Medical Centre in Kolkata is helping to improve cure rates in children with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) in India by 10-15 per cent.

The knowledge transfer from Manchester is also raising standards of cancer care at Paediatric Cancer Centres in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Chandigarh, the university said on International Cancer Survivors Day on Sunday.

Professor Vaskar Saha, a paediatrician from the University of Manchester, has helped cure children diagnosed with ALL by 15 per cent during the five years he has led the Indian Childhood Collaborative Leukaemia Group (ICICLE) clinical project, in partnership with Tata Medical Centre in Kolkata.

"In the UK, 450 children are diagnosed annually with ALL, of which 400 will survive. In India, 9,000 of the 15,000 children diagnosed annually will survive," said Saha,