Mumbai: The Tata Memorial Hospital on Sunday introduced a Virtual Tumour Board (VTB) to provide multi-disciplinary medical guidance to cancer patients.
The board comprises cancer experts, surgeons, paramedics from major government-run as well as private hospitals and cancer institutes, who discuss complex cancer cases and give their opinions on treatment and procedure. The web-based discussions are conducted at certain hours.
“The VTB provides the hospitals free expert opinions from leading cancer specialists, including Tata Memorial Hospital experts, to plan treatment of cancer patients in an effective and timely manner,” said Dr. C. Pramesh, professor and chief, thoracic surgery, department of surgical oncology, at the hospital.
While the board was officially launched on Sunday in the presence of Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda and Maharashtra Health Minister Deepak Sawant, it has been functioning for the last two months on a smaller scale.
Dr. Kailash Sharma, director, Academics, Tata Memorial Centre, said, “There are 96 centres in the country that are currently linked with this centre. We are increasing the number of participants on the board. On a specified day, cancer experts, as per their availability, participate in virtual discussions, where some centres present the cancer patient’s case and others provide their opinion. Cancer cases are complicated and one city cannot have all types of experts. In such a situation, the required experts can chip in once they know the details of the patient, disease and its complexity.” Dr. Pramesh said the board can have members such as surgeons, pathologists, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists and imaging technologists.
