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Rising air pollution, including fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ground-level ozone, has prompted calls for India-specific research into its potential contribution to cancer risk, particularly gastrointestinal (GI) cancers, experts have said. While emerging international studies have linked long-term exposure to air pollutants with higher cancer risk, researchers have cautioned that the findings establish associations and do not prove that pollution causes GI cancers or explains the reported rise of cases among younger patients. The issue was discussed at a two-day international conference on colorectal and other GI cancers organised by the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in collaboration with the United Kingdom's The Christie NHS Foundation Trust here on October 10-11. Dr D S Rana, Chairman, Trust Society, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, said the international collaboration between the hospital and The Christie NHS Foundation Trust represents an important step towards strengthening medical ...
India needs a five-year policy agenda to make advanced genomic testing and targeted cancer therapies accessible to lower-income patients, leading oncologist Dr Bhawna Sirohi said on Saturday. Speaking to PTI, Sirohi noted that precision oncology has the potential to transform cancer treatment, but high costs, limited access to advanced genomic testing and expensive drugs remain major challenges in the country. Sirohi, consultant medical oncologist and medical director at Vedanta Medical Research Foundation-BALCO Medical Centre, Raipur, is the only cancer specialist from India on a new Lancet Oncology Commission on precision cancer, launched at the World Cancer Congress in Hong Kong on Friday. The cancer specialist stated that unlike conventional chemotherapy, which can affect both cancerous and normal cells, precision treatment seeks to identify a specific target or biomarker on cancer cells and match it with an appropriate drug. Precision oncology allows doctors to identify the ..
The government has started a survey to identify the gaps and review infrastructure of all district hospitals in order to implement the budget announcement of setting up daycare cancer centres in all health facilities over the next three years. The estimated expenditure for setting up these centres will be Rs 3,200 crore over the next three years, Union Health ministry officials said. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her budget speech that the government will facilitate setting up of daycare cancer centres in all district hospitals over the next three years and 200 of these will be established in 2025-26. "This will lead to an increase in access to quality cancer care for more people especially in rural areas. Also this will reduce the burden on tertiary care centres, allowing them to focus on more complex cases, by offering such services at district level," she said. A senior official said these will be four-six bedded centres and will focus on providing chemotherapy ...
In 2022, India had more than 14.1 lakh new cancer cases and over 9.1 lakh deaths due to the disease, and breast cancer was the most common, according to the latest estimates of the disease's global burden by the World Health Organization (WHO). Cancers of lip, oral cavity and lung were the most common ones in men, accounting for 15.6 and 8.5 per cent of the new cases, respectively, whereas, cancers of breast and cervix uteri were the most frequent ones in women, making up close to 27 and 18 per cent of the new cases, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), WHO's cancer agency has estimated. It also calculated that the number of people alive within 5 years following a cancer diagnosis was nearly 32.6 lakhs in India. Globally, the agency estimated 2 crore new cancer cases and 97 lakh deaths, and about 5.3 crore people were alive within 5 years following a cancer diagnosis. About 1 in 5 people develop cancer in their lifetime, and roughly 1 in 9 men and 1 in 12 women di
A sex-specific group of ten plasma proteins were found to detect 18 different early-stage cancers, representing all major organs of the body, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal Oncology. Researchers said that while cancers of kidney in men and colon in women were easier to detect using their test, bladder cancer in women and thyroid cancer in men were "more challenging but achieved with relatively high accuracy after optimisation". The proteins could also detect liver and ovarian cancers, among others. The research team at Novelna Inc, the US company that designed the test, found that while each of these proteins, by itself, was only moderately accurate at picking up the disease at an early stage, it was highly accurate when combined with other proteins in the group. They said that these proteins were particularly effective at picking up early-stage disease, even as they showed an ability to pick up stage I-III disease and all types of cancer. The team sa
Zydus Lifesciences on Thursday said it has joined hands with oncology firm Guardant Health to jointly promote a portfolio of liquid and tissue biopsy tests across India and Nepal. The companies have inked a co-marketing agreement to jointly promote the Guardant360 portfolio in India and Nepal. The tests to be promoted include the Guardant360 and Guardant360 TissueNext tests for comprehensive genomic profiling and the Guardant360 Response test for monitoring response to treatment, the drug maker said in a statement. The agreement demonstrates a shared commitment to advance precision medicine and improve patient outcomes in the region, it added. By combining resources and expertise, both organisations aim to empower oncologists with the necessary tools to help inform treatment decisions for patients with advanced cancer, Zydus noted. "This collaboration with Zydus to co-promote the Guardant360 portfolio across their extensive network signifies our mutual commitment to address unmet