“We know the causes of at least 70% of cancers, and around 60% of cancers are preventable, so the National Cancer Institute (NCI) will have a major preventive campaign,” said Dr. G.K. Rath, Head, NCI.
“It is unfortunate that the largely preventable disease comes in for clinical treatment at the third or fourth stage when the survival rate is only 20%. At stage I and at times II, which are said to be the early stages of cancer, only 20% reach out for clinical diagnosis and treatment. The cure rate of this segment has been found to be over 80%,” said Dr. Rath, who is the chief of the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Institute of Rotary Cancer Hospital at the All India Institute of medical Sciences, under which NCI is coming up.
Speaking to The Hindu , he said around 40% of cancers were related to tobacco, 15% to infections like HPV or Hepatitis B or C, and another 15% due to obesity and other lifestyle disorders.
The NCI, the largest public health investment project with a funding of ₹2,035 crore, will take up research on India-centric cancers, said Dr. Rath, who was in the city to attend the annual review meeting of the National Cancer Registry Programme of the Indian Council of Medical Research. The NCI is expected to start full-fledged operations on September 1, 2018.
“There are a lot of celebrities who have declared their comeback to life after cancer, he said. The public needs to know how these cancers can be cured by early detection and treatment. Yuvraj Singh, Manisha Koirala, and Lisa Ray are all success stories,” he said.
While breast cancers have seen a rising trend globally as well as in India, oral cancers, head and neck cancers along with lung cancers have a rising trend, and most of them have been found to be tobacco-related.
Preventive activities are conducted on the new campus that is coming up at Jhajjar, Haryana, in 50 acres of land, which is 50 kms away from AIIMS. The out-patient services on the NCI campus sees about 800 patients every day. As the nodal institute for all cancer-related activities in the country and linkages to the Regional Cancer Centres and other cancer institutes, the NCI is being built on the lines of the National Cancer Institute in the U.S.“Data collected from population-based registries supplemented by hospital-based registries have thrown up a large amount of inputs to realise the magnitude of the disease, and the NCI will offer tertiary care to patients at the 710-bed hospital, besides leading innovative research and development of novel interventions to prevent and treat cancer,” said Dr. Rath. The analysis of the data will help identify research projects and awareness and preventive programmes for various regions.
Among the many aims of the NCI are taking up clinical trials of new drugs as well as vaccines, incorporating newly developed techniques in cancer therapy into clinical practice and creating international linkages with major cancer centres for exchanging cancer-related information and establishing exchange programmes for training and education.
“Scientific research is going to provide the lead in resolving most of the issues of human sufferings in this millennium,” said Dr. Rath.