Within months of Apollo Hospitals bringing in cutting-edge cancer technology, “cyberknife”, to India, healthcare group Max Healthcare has introduced state-of-the-art “Novalis Tx” radiation technology, beside setting up a super-speciality oncology division.
Apollo, which had invested Rs 65-70 crore in acquiring the robotic technology, accessories and setting up infrastructure for cyberknife, has plans to invest additional Rs 80 crore in installing two more systems. The treatment through cyberknife costs around Rs 5 lakh, more than double the cost of conventional therapies. “The cost of treatment through Novalis could range between Rs 70,000 and Rs 2,50,000, which is expensive than conventional therapy, but cheaper than cyberknife,” said AK Anand, chief of radiation oncology, Max Healthcare.
Talking of cyberknife, Sanjay Chandrasekar, senior consultant, radiation oncology, Apollo, had said, “The biggest advantage is that this procedure can be completed in a week’s time, far less than conventional cancer therapies. It also does not trigger any known side effects. The new treatment can be used to treat tumours previously considered inoperable and most treatments can be performed even on an outpatient basis.”
The oncology experts in Max also considered cyberknife as an option, but finally decided on Novalis. “There is a lot of buzz around cyberknife, but we felt that Novalis scores over the former and provides similar or more effective solutions for a lower cost to the patient. It treats benign tumours and tumours larger than 5 cm diameter, areas where cyberknife has its limitations,” said Bhawna Sirohi, chief of medical oncology, Max, who intends to start a clinical trials unit in the hospital’s super-specialty division.
Max has made an initial investment of around Rs 20-25 crore in the oncology super-speciality centre, a sum that would be increased as the division is expanded and more new equipment and technologies added.
Meanwhile, Apollo is upbeat on cyberknife. “Over 50 patients with intracranial, spine, lung and prostate tumours have benefited from the cyberknife treatment and the results are very promising. Many patients had tumours that would have been considered inoperable or even untreatable,” said Dr Janos Stumpf, director of research in oncology, Apollo.
In 2005, India had around 252 units of radiotherapy equipment, about one-fourth of the existing need. Every year, the country sees about 8,50,000 new diagnosed cancer cases and 5,80,000 cancer-related deaths, as per the cancer support society. The WHO estimates that 84 million people will die globally of cancer between 2005 and 2015 without intervention. India has the highest number of oral and throat cancer cases in the world. Every third oral cancer patient in the world is from India. Compared to developed countries, the incidence of cancer is lower in India, but this could be partially because many cases go undiagnosed.