Dr Niti Raizada

50 million instances of various cancers have been reported globally over the past five years, in addition to almost 10 million cancer-related fatalities. In India, cancer incidence increased by roughly 324 per cent between 2017 and 2018, according to the 2019 National Health Profile. Even though early detection of breast and lung tumours is associated with high rates of remission, these malignancies still rank first in terms of cancer-related death.

The COVID-19 pandemic only made matters worse: registration of new patients, follow-ups of previously registered patients, outpatient chemotherapies, cancer procedures, and radiation administration were all severely disrupted in India, which had a significant impact on cancer care. According to a cohort research that was published in The Lancet Oncology, cancer screening was also discontinued in more than 70 per cent of hospitals in India.

India’s breast cancer situation

More than 1.3 million new instances of cancer and more than 8.5 lakh fatalities from the disease occur in India each year. In addition to being a health issue, cancer is a complicated problem that affects social, economic, developmental, and human rights. Cancer screening is one of the easiest and least expensive procedures that doctors may use while treating patients. Early cancer detection increases the probability of successful treatment.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed worldwide and the leading cause of mortality for women. According to Globocan 2020, this illness causes almost >1.7 lakh new cases and >90,000 fatalities per year in India. While the incidence of breast cancer is rising, technological advancements are beginning to appear that can help lessen the burden of the disease. Modern oral medicines aim to improve patients’ chances of survival and quality of life.

Diagnosis of breast cancers made accessible

The prognosis for cancer has significantly improved because of advanced diagnostic methods and treatment choices, but they are still out of reach for a big portion of the Indian population, mostly because of their unreasonably expensive costs.

Thanks to much higher survival rates, newer medicines have changed the perception of cancer from being a death sentence to a chronically debilitating illness. Today, patients undergo many lines of therapy, even if the initial line of therapy is unsuccessful, to keep the cancer’s development in check.

Cancer therapies

Prior to surgery, the patients were exclusively treated with chemotherapy and radiation. Today, there are several alternatives for treating breast cancer. Modern developments in breast cancer treatment enable women to receive timely care and enhance their quality of life. Inhibitors of CDK4 and CDK6 are new oral therapies used to treat hormone-positive metastatic breast cancer. More than 60 per cent of breast cancer patients in India have hormone receptor positive disease.

Palbociclib (a CDK4/6 Inhibitor) is being made more widely available to patients by Indian businesses like Cipla, who are bringing down the price from Rs 90,000 to less than Rs 5,000 each month. In this sense, a large number of people will be impacted by the introduction of more Indian generics.

Conclusion

However, access to affordable tertiary care in India is still a distant dream. Improving primary prevention through efficient screening and early diagnosis would be a workable strategy. By identifying cancer in its earliest stages and putting it under the right kind of therapy, screening has been demonstrated to increase overall survival. In order to close the gap between expensive, high-quality treatment and affordable care, patient-cantered approaches that concentrate on providing healthcare to underprivileged individuals are needed while keeping in mind the unresolved cancer epidemic.

Dr Niti Raizada, Senior Director, Medical Oncology & Hemato-Oncology, Fortis Hospital, Bangalore

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