BioVoice News September 2017 Issue 4 Volume 2 | Page 24

expert corner Stronger approach needed to make cancer treatment accessible and affordable Creating awareness to prevention and early detection will be critical to a successful cancer care structure in the country, writes Praveen Bose T he increasing number of cancer cases in India has created a need for new development and trends in the field of oncology drugs and treatment. There is a definite gap that largely still needs to be bridged. However, the access to global drugs, diagnostics tests and therapy options have increased in the country over the past one decade. Globally, cancer is also responsible for almost one out of six deaths. More than 14 million 24 BioVoiceNews | September 2017 people develop cancer every year, revealed a statistics and it is projected to rise to at least 21 million by 2030. According to a report by Indian Council of Medical Research, there will be 17.3 lakh (1.7 million) new cases of cancer in India with breast, cervical and lung cancers being the most prominent by 2020. There is an urgent need of access to effective and affordable anticancer medications in India. Both the government and the oncology industry players need to look for means to make global trends in cancer therapy available to this part of the world. This can be done by improving regulations, bringing in world class research based drugs, diagnostics and devices and by making the whole spectrum of treatment options affordable to the Indian population New techniques being adopted for the treatment of cancer With the increased noise level in the social and channel media as well as information explosion through the internet,