Jaipur: With new therapies coming up for cancer treatment, doctors from the entire country as well as abroad will gather in the city for three days from Friday, to put their heads together on how to make cancer treatment cost-effective for patients.New immunotherapy, which is quite expensive, will be at the centre of the discussion on making the treatment more cost-effective. “One cycle of immunotherapy costs Rs1.5 lakh and one patient requires four cycles of the immunotherapy,” said Dr Hemant Malhotra, senior professor, department of Medicine & head, division of Medical Oncology, RK Birla Cancer Centre, SMS Medical College Hospital, Jaipur.Dr Malhotra, who is the organising chairperson of the 2018 ISMPO conference – ‘Conquering Cancer: Current Concepts’ beginning from Friday said, “Cancer can be cured if detected at an early stage. In western countries, 50% of cancer patients are cured but in India, only one-third of cancer patients are cured. It does not show that we have inferior quality of treatment, but it is because of the patients coming to hospital in an advance stage,” said Dr Malhotra, while adding that in one-third of cancer patients in India, cancer is controlled and patients are near normal; while in western countries, the percentage of such patients is 30. Besides, 20% of patients in western countries need palliative care, while in India, about one-third of cancer patients require palliative care. He said that in the west, 50% of patients are diagnosed with cancer at an early stage, while in India, 50% to 70% of patients are diagnosed with cancer in advance stage.In the conference, which will conclude on November 18, government doctors will also be able to take part. “We have written to chief medical health officers and principal medical officers to send government doctors to take part in the workshop of the conference. It will help in early diagnosis of cancer at district level,” said Dr Lalit Mohan Sharma, senior consultant, Medical Oncology of a private hospital and organising secretary of the conference.He said it is a unique conference as it has sessions for practising physicians, paediatricians and gynaecologists.

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