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 ..
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