Indian doctors target global health market with nin-invasive cancer therapy
Published: July 31, 2005
Doctors in the silicon city of India hope to exploit the global health market with a new non-invasive radiation treatment to treat cancer patients at a much lower rates compared to costs abroad.
Launched for the first time in India, the Intensity Modulated Arc Therapy (IMAT) is a more sophisticated form of radiation therapy, which is in use in some hospitals across the country for the last one year.
In standard radiation therapy, a uniform beam of radiation is aimed at the tumour but due to its two dimensional nature, it is a challenge to prevent healthy tissues surrounding it from being affected.
In the new therapy radiation machine rotates around the patient in different angles in form of an arc, and zeros in on the tumour to destroy it with a blast of radiation.
Doctors say the Arc therapy adds a new dimension to the treatment of cancer and administers a high dose of radiation to patients without affecting the normal surrounding tissues. While radiation, surgery and chemotherapy already exist as options for treatment of cancer, the new therapy is more targeted.
But the therapy has to be undertaken by experts because one mistake can cause immense damage to the normal tissue while leaving infected tissues unharmed, in a “geographical miss”.
Doctors are also selective about choosing patients for the new treatment. While patients in the advanced stage of cancer may not qualify for the therapy, it could be effective for patients even with a big tumour near a vital body organ because of the extreme precision in the nature of treatment.
State-of-the-art cancer treatment machines, installed at the privately-run Curie Centre of Oncology at a cost of 100 million rupees (2.3 million dollar), can treat cancer patients in a very cost-effective manner.
Cost of the treatment may vary from 25,000 rupees (576 US dollar) in the first stage of cancer to 60,000 rupees (1,390 dollar) in its second stage, at a fraction of the cost in western countries. This would also become a major attraction for patients from western countries seeking newer treatments at reasonable costs.
“The treatment cost for the patient probably is 1/20th or 1/30th less. If I operate for example on a patient with a brain tumour, the cost in the US is probably going to be 20,000 to 25,000 US dollar but here it may be 1,000 or 1,500 US dollar. That is the big difference. Obviously the technology is the same. The important thing is that the people who are doing it are capable. They have been trained in the US, UK or now in India under people who are equally capable. So that has become attractive for us as well as several groups who have approached us for treatment of non-intraventional therapy,” said B.S. Ajai Kumar, Chairman of Curie Centre of Oncology.
Kumar said the hospital had already treated a few patients from the Middle-East countries and had started receiving inquiries from hospitals and groups in Germany, Africa and some other South East Asian countries.
Recent studies indicate people across South Africa, South America, the Middle East, even the US and UK are choosing private Indian hospitals for getting good treatment, or simply a diagnosis.
Between 1996 and 2001, the number of foreign patients in New Delhi alone has doubled and a McKinsey study shows that if all goes well medical outsourcing could earn upmarket hospitals about 2.17 billion dollars by 2012.
What began as a trickle in late nineties, with a sizeable chunk of India’s 20 million strong diaspora timing medical treatments with visits home, the initially niche establishment has grown into a formidable industry galloping ahead at an annual 30 per cent growth rate
Besides the money factor, few across the world doubt the sheer brilliance of the Indian brain and the expertise of its professionals, honed by the volume of work. A doctor in this billion-plus nation treats thrice the number of patients in his tenure than his western counterparts.
Others are reassured by the fact that many have practised for long years in the US or UK before returning back home. Making them more comfortable are custom-made websites allowing them to further weigh the pros and cons of coming to India for treatment.
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