National Cancer Registry to collate care, survival rate

Nearly 90 per cent of cancer hospitals do not follow up on patients, who have undergone complete treatment. The situation prevails not only in Bangalore but across the country as well, said an official from the Bangalore-based National Cancer Registry. 

The National Cancer Registry has therefore taken up a pattern of care and survival study that will collate the data collected from 17 participating hospitals across the country. The Registry will also compare the best treatment and survival rates thus collated.

The primary focus of the study is on cancer affecting the breast, cervix, head and neck, as these form of cancers are prevalent in India. Three institutes from Bangalore, one government and two private medical colleges, will be among the 17 centres in the country contributing to the study.

Moreover, the National Cancer Registry has provided the hospitals with a software that will enable them to conduct analyses on outcome of treatment and follow-up on patients.

The analyses thus conducted shall help in observing the survival rate.

“Ideally, a hospital should do a follow-up on its patients for three years. But only 10 to 15 per cent of the hospitals do a passive follow-up of its patients,” said the official.

The conclusions of the study will be out in two years. The results will be shown to all centres, however, the identity of the participating hospitals will be maintained, he added.

“Through our study we do not intend to dictate the protocol of treatment to hospitals,” he said. The need for the study was felt, as most of the data on treatment and patient survival rate is that of the Western countries. The software provided by the Registry will allow the participating hospitals to not only gather quality data to compare the patient care but also remind them about the patient’s next follow-up examination.

Follow-ups through SMS

Moreover, it has the provision to send mobile text messages to patients reminding them about their follow-up. Thus, it will help in finding out whether the treatment provided at the hospital has succeeded or not, the official added.

Meanwhile, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is soon going to set up a National Centre for Disease Informatics and Research that will create disease registries for various non-communicable diseases. The centre will be set up at a cost of  Rs 15 crore. Also, 18 scientific posts have been sanctioned.