Lok Sabha Question No. 380 (STARRED), answered on 2025-03-26
Subject: Treatment of Cancer Patients
Ministry: ATOMIC ENERGY
Asked by: Dr. Rajeev Bharadwaj

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA DEPARTMENT OF ATOMIC ENERGY

## LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO - 380

ANSWERED ON 26.03.2025

## TREATMENT TO CANCER PATIENTS

## *380.        DR. RAJEEV BHARADWAJ:

Will the PRIME MINISTER be pleased to state:

- (a)  the efforts made by the Government to provide high quality treatment to cancer patients in the country;
- (b)  the details of the specific research work carried out for the treatment of cancer patients during the last five years;
- (c)   the details and the manner in which the functioning of the National Cancer Grid helps in treatment of the cancer patient; and
- (d)  the details of the centres and research institutions of National Cancer Grid, State-wise?

## ANSWER

THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR PERSONNEL, PUBLIC GRIEVANCES AND PENSIONS AND PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE (DR. JITENDRA SINGH):

- (a) to (d) A statement is laid on the Table of the House.

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## Government of India Department of Atomic Energy

## STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (A) TO (D) IN RESPECT OF LOK SABHA  STARRED  QUESTION  NO.  380  FOR  REPLY  ON  26.03.2025  REGARDING 'TREATMENT OF CANCER PATIENTS' BY DR. RAJEEV BHARADWAJ.

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- (a) Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) an aided institute under the aegis of Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), has been providing high quality cancer care at an affordable cost by following unique model of 60:40 ratio under which 60% patients received treatment at highly subsidized or almost free treatment and rest 40% are private patient pay for their care. The rates for even the private patients are low compared with the rates as charged by the private hospitals in the country. Further, the details of specific measures being implemented by TMC to ensure that patients receive high-quality  cancer care are  as below:
- 1) Resource  stratified  guidelines  for  management  of  cancers  based  on  the  costeffectiveness and infrastructure availability.
- 2) The  guidelines  are  linked  with  Ayushman  Bharat  Pradhan  Mantri  Jan  Arogya Yojana  (AB-PMJAY)  to  ensure  quality  of  care  delivery  to  the  AB-PMJAY beneficiaries.
- 3) Standardization of diagnosis by National Cancer Grid (NCG) surgical pathology quality  assurance  program,  which  helps  ensuring  correct  diagnosis  at  all  the participating centres.
- 4) Quality improvement programme which train the centres in improving quality of all the care pathways.
- 5) Group negotiation for all the high-value anticancer drugs resulting in a median 82% price reduction leading to improvement in access and affordability of drugs.
- 6) Training of health-care professionals including nurses, pathologists and technicians from across the country to deliver high quality cancer care.
- 7) Virtual  Tumour  Boards  to  provide  inputs  on  diagnosis  and  treatment  from  a multidisciplinary team of cancer experts for all the complex cancer cases at any of the cancer centers at any location.
- (b) The details of the specific research work carried out for the treatment of cancer patients during the last five years is as below:
- 1) Optimization of treatment of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia to increase cure rates - the largest trial done till date anywhere in the world.
- 2) Repurposing of drugs (aspirin, metformin and curcumin) to provide cost-effective treatment options for common cancers.
- 3) Training the early career oncologists in conducting high-quality cancer research. Till date more than 400 oncologists have been trained.
- 4) Setting a priority agenda for cancer research and collaborating with ICMR (with joint  matched  funding)  to  fund  the  country-relevant  research  questions.  These include the following:
- i) Reduce burden of patients presenting with advanced disease
- ii) Improve access,  affordability  and  outcomes  in  cancer  care  via  solutionoriented research
- iii) Country-level  health  economic  assessment  of  cancer  interventions  and technologies
- iv) Quality improvement and implementation research
- v) Leverage  technology  to  improve  cancer  control  supported  by  robust scientific evidence
- 5) The large yoga randomized clinical trial proved that Yoga increases the quality-oflife and cure rates in women with breast cancer with 15% relative improvement in Disease-free  Survival  (DFS)  and  14%  in  Overall  Survival  (OS)  after  yoga intervention (Nair NS, et al).
- 6) CAR T-cell therapy:
- i. Collaboration between TMC and IIT (B) to develop the first indigenous CAR T Cell Therapy Product.
- ii. The first CAR-T Cell therapy for a patient of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in India was performed on June 4, 2021 at ACTREC.
- iii. The first CAR T Cell Therapy for a patient of lymphoma was performed on June 21, 2021 in TMH.
- iv. The  above 2 trials led to approval and commercialization of the indigenously developed CAR T product from DCGI in December 2023
- (c)&(d)  The  National  Cancer  Grid  (NCG)  was  created  in  2012  with  the  broad  vision  of delivering high-quality and uniform standards of cancer care to all the patients across India.  Now the NCG has grown to a large network of 340 cancer centres, research institutes, patient advocacy groups, charitable organisations and professional societies. Between the member organisations of the NCF, the network treats over 850,000 new patients  with  cancer  annually,  which  is  about  60%  of  all  of  India's  cancer  burden. Incorporating  all  stakeholders  of  cancer  care  in  Indian,  it  is  a  strong,  unified  and powerful voice in the fight against cancer.

The details of steps taken by NCG for cancer care is as below:

- i) Expansion of network from 17 centres to 320 centres across all the States and Union Territories (state-wise list at https:/ncgindia.org)
2. ii) Establishment  of  Koita  Centre  of  digital  oncology  (funded  by  a  Charitable Foundation)  to  leverage  digital  technologies  to  improve  cancer  care  from prevention to treatment. This is in complete alignment with Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission.
3. iii) Integrated data collection & aggregation - a 'National Cancer Database to guide all  the  cancer  policies  and  national  cancer  control  plan.  Initial  databases established for five common cancers.
4. iv) Partnering with digital tech companies to deliver cancer care near to patient's home.
- v) Initiation of national tumor tissue biobank across NCG to understand the cancer causation,  identification  and  development  of  new  anticancer  treatment  and preventive technologies.

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