New cancer study uncovers sickness in treatment plans

A new study has revealed that a staggering majority of Indian cancer patients are not on the best path of treatment.

The study, which analysed medical data of 365 patients over a six month period, has discovered that a majority of Indian cancer patients are not on the best path of treatment.

“Because of a lack of access to specialised doctors, most Indian patients are denied multidisciplinary opinions, which, in the west, would result in an accurate cancer diagnosis. The result is that patients have no credible source of information regarding their condition,” said Dr. Amit Jotwani, a radio oncologist said.

“The inability of people to spend money is not the cause of most deaths in India. The cause of most deaths is that people are being given ineffective treatment,” he added.

According to Rashie Jain, who works with Dr Jotwani, 83 per cent of Indian cancer patients were on the “wrong path of treatment”.

Jotwani, who co-founded private oncology consultancy Onco, which is behind the study, said that erroneous advice, busy doctors and a lack of in-house technological capabilities at some hospitals had led some cancer patients to be wrongly diagnosed.

According to Jain, nearly 41% of the 365 patients had been placed on the wrong treatment path due to incomplete testing, 27% were on an inefficient chemotherapy drug regimen, 15% were being subject to a completely wrong treatment regimen and 17% were on a validated treatment plan.

But Dr. C Ramachandra, Director of Kidwai, Bengaluru, contested these figures, saying: “The treatment plan is unaltered with that being delivered by hospitals in other parts of the world,” he said. “To say that a majority of Indian patients are somehow not on the right treatment path is wrong.”