Dinesh was hassled after Amit started getting chronic aches in spine, a year back. This March, he was diagnosed with cancer in Bengaluru hospital. What left Dinesh in a lurch was that the hospital provided no conclusive diagnosis on the type of cancer that Amit may have had.
A father's life was shattered, in Bengaluru, when he realised that his 10-year-old son had a rare cancer. Almost 1,000km away, Mumbai's Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH) came to the rescue of 55-year-old Dinesh Kumar and held his hand through his boy Amit's diagnosis.
Dinesh was hassled after Amit started getting chronic aches in spine, a year back. This March, he was diagnosed with cancer in Bengaluru hospital. What left Dinesh in a lurch was that the hospital provided no conclusive diagnosis on the type of cancer that Amit may have had.
"We were given four different diagnosis where doctors said Amit may be suffering from either Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath tumour, Ewing's sarcoma, Synovial sarcoma or Wilm's tumour," said Dinesh.
A disillusioned Dinesh did not know what to do, unless he chanced upon a link, 'Online Treatment Opinion', on Tata Memorial's website. Within a week of uploading all the patient's records, he received a conclusive opinion from doctors confirming diagnosis of Synovial sarcoma for Amit.
In the last one year in a pilot-based project, TMH has counselled up to 834 patients globally, including India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Russia, South Africa, Australia and US. This, in addition to 35,000 patients that throng their corridors, seeking treatment from across India and abroad.
What do a 73-year-old woman based out of South Africa, a 29-year-old US-based mother of a newborn and 51-year-old woman in Pune have in common? They all have sought opinion from TMH virtually before resorting to a modality of treatment for breast cancer.
"An old woman from a remote part of SA got surgical treatment in her hometown and avoided the need to travel to India, as TMH doctors guided her online," said Dr Rajan Badwe, director, Tata Memorial Centre.
TMH has tied up with Navya Network, a company founded by Harvard University's Computer Science graduate Gitika Srivastava and Dr Naresh Ramrajan, to create a clinical decision system. "Up to 55,000 persons globally write in to us on email every year individually for online. For us to open heavy attachments and analyse unstructure report takes at least 30 minutes for each patient. With introduction of the clinical decision system, we will now receive systematic reports and treatment options will be meted out within five minutes," said Dr Anil D'Cruz, director, Tata Memorial Hospital.
"After the patient's clinical information is received, it is run through the system and accurate diagnosis is obtained from the computer software. This is sent to TMH doctors for review and opinion."
Up to 10 lakh new cases of cancer are detected every year in India, whereas there are not more than 1,500 oncology experts to treat them. "Our software has the capacity to process up to 8,000 cases annually and we are looking at scaling up our services," said Srivastava.
The online treatment opinion services provided by the hospital cost Rs5,000 for an Indian patient and $100 for a foreigner and are available between 3 and 7 days at the most. Patients who are BPL will receive free services.
The fee is nothing compared to lakhs a person may spend without seeking proper diagnosis and may get mislead by small-town doctors, said doctors. "About 40% cases that we deal with at TMH are cases where patients had to conduct re-surgeries to salvage the situation. An online initial correct diagnosis is life saving for patients in such cases," said Dr D'Cruz.
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