Address at the Inauguration of Department of Radio Threapy and Nuclear Medicine of Barasat Cancer Research and Welfare Centre

Cancer Treatment : Challenges

I am indeed delighted to participate in the inauguration of the Department of Radio-therapy and Nuclear Medicine of Barasat Cancer Research and Welfare Centre. I greet the organizers, distinguished doctors, guests and dedicated paramedical staff on this occasion. I have been informed that Barasat Cancer Research and Welfare Center has been working for distressed humanity to save them from the clutches of cancer. I appreciate the missionary spirit and dedication of this team in providing valuable services to the underprivileged section of our society.

Insights into Life

I would like to share a few experiences of people and their pain and possible solution. Last year, I was at the Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology at Hyderabad. I met hundreds of young scientists working on the genetic origin and manifestation of diseases, particularly Cancer. The young scholars very enthusiastically shared with me their knowledge of molecular biology and cellular research. They told me about the information encrypted on the DNA of a cell and how both problems and solutions to the human lives reside on the software that nature has embedded in each life it creates. In a way, these young minds were dealing with the questions that were so far confined in the domain of sages and philosophers.

Cancer, unlike many other diseases that come from the external factors, like infections, life styles and other environmental and physiological stressors, emanate from within the cell. The life software embedded in the DNA material gets mutated and start growing in a way that is not in-line with the cells around. Life turns against itself. The tragedy becomes unfathomable when it happens too early.

Sometime back, I met one gentleman whose 6-year-old grand child was on periodic blood transfusion for Thallesemia. The permanent solution, doctors told me was a bone marrow transplant. The bone marrow of the child was not matching even between siblings and the parents. Unmatched bone marrow transplant is not done in India, I was told, and even in the West it is done experimentally. I met the child who was unaware of the time bomb that was ticking inside him. I prayed for him, for that was the only thing I could do. Today, standing before this gathering of cancer experts, I think I must share with you my concern for these patients who live under the shadow of uncertain life. What can we do to strengthen the doctors? capabilities in such a situation? In India, we have limited beds for B.M.T. Also when the medical community finds that a person has cancer, in addition to treating him, he should also provide him psychological support. This support should be in the form of giving him an advice to live a normal life. He should be advised not to change anything, including his identity. He should keep himself intact, should not consider himself just as a cancer patient and re-discover his inner self ? personal, professional, social and spiritual.

Affordable & Accessible Therapeutics

Treatment of cancer involves any one but most often a combination of radiation, chemotherapy and surgery. Genetic diagnosis can help to take good decisions while charting the course of therapy. On the drug side, instead of looking for agents that kill dividing cells, researchers are now looking for agents that encourage cell to get destroyed. Inside a growing ball of cancer cells, the blood supply can run short, so the cells begin to suffocate. Malignant cancers get over this problem by sending out a signal to the body to grow new arteries into the tumour. These arteries characteristically grow like a crab-claw that first gave cancer its Greek name. Many drugs, called angiogenic agents, are now available to destroy these supply lines. These drugs are imported and are very expensive. Industry-hospital-research institution consortia need to be established to develop affordable indigenous products.

Optimisation of Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy often destroys healthy cells together with the intended cancerous ones. A firm in Pune has developed algorithms describing interaction between normal cells, malignant cells and nutrients. The algorithms also take into account the pharmaco-kinetics of the drug. Together with inputs on patient?s age, height and weight and the type and volume of the tumour, the mathematical model can design an optimal drug schedule minimising side effects. The type and volume of tumour can be automatically deduced from the CT or MRI scans. This is a good example of how advances in many disciplines of science such as Biomedical engineering, Image processing, control systems, mathematical modelling and pharmacology are helping in the development of better and effective treatment for cancer patients.

Networking of institutions

There are a number of hospitals providing cancer treatment in different cities of the country. It will be useful to network these cancer treatment centers for enabling consultancy among specialists and directing the patients to the right type of specialists who may be available in one of the networked institutions. This type of consultations among experts will generate confidence among medical community to undertake treatment of complex cancer cases and enable them to cure the disease with cumulative experience. During one of my visits I found that cancer centers have immunologists, physiologists and psychologists working together. This model could be followed by this center to provide psychological support to the patients which will facilitate faster recovery.

Conclusion

Availability of comprehensive cancer centres like Barasat Cancer Research and Welfare Centre, Kolkata is a significant step forward in dealing with the most challenging healthcare problem of this region. However, we need an active connectivity of general practitioners with this centre to make a major impact in terms of reaching the needy as well as helping them out. The mission of offering the best available patient care, the most sophisticated education to physicians and patients and be the leader in the cancer research is indeed a very challenging task. This mission demands highest of the human capabilities in intelligence, innovation and perseverance.

It is also equally important that the general public is educated about the healthcare risks of exposure to carcinogenic agents as a result of life-styles and habits. To this end, education of children on this subject should begin as early as in the primary schools so that children do not get initiated into bad habits and thus remain immune from the impact of such disease. Let our new generation enjoy health and prosperity and do not succumb to the needless waste of human life. Cancer cure and cancer research are indeed twin challenges to the medico and health-care community. Challenge transforms into mission of pain removal and thereby provides useful life that is close to the God. I am happy to inaugurate the Radio-Therapy and Nuclear Medicine Department.

May God bless you.