Tata memorial hospital cancer treatment cost

Salumuri Sri Venkateswara Rao had been suffering from a nasty cough for days. But the 50-year-old construction manager in Dubai ignored it because he did not think it was anything serious. When the racking cough refused to go away, Rao finally went to a doctor who prescribed a cough syrup. A few days later, he felt a constriction in his throat and could not eat normally. Rao went to Abu Dhabi's Ahalia Hospital, where doctors said he might have cancer. "This came as a big shock as he had all along been thinking it could be nothing worse than a throat infection," says M. Nagarjuna, Rao's son-in-law. Last October, Rao headed for India and went through a battery of tests at Hyderabad's Omega Hospital. The final diagnosis: he had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer that predominantly affects the lymph nodes and thereby the immune system. Rao was mentally prepared for the worst by then, but what he was not ready for was the astronomical cost of treatment. Two months and four chemotherapy cycles later, he had already forked out Rs 5 lakh and expects the final bill to touch Rs 10 lakh. The costs include a lymph node biopsy, a bone marrow test, an endoscopy, a PET scan, special anticancer drugs and six cycles of chemotherapy. Each chemotherapy sitting costs Rs 90,000. "It began as just a routine cough. How could I have known?" asks Rao. "We decided to encash our savings in fixed deposits, bonds and rely for some expenses on the credit card." Dozens of people from little children to th...

MUMBAI: Doctors at Mumbai's Tata Memorial Hospital are testing a low-cost, low-dose daily chemotherapy for patients whose ovarian cancer has recurred more than twice. As cancer medicines are expensive, the idea was not only reduce costs substantially, but to reduce toxicity and side-effects usually associated with cancer treatment. "If one considers that the cost of conventional chemotherapy is Rs 50,000 a cycle, the low-dose alternative would work out to barely Rs 2,000 a month. It is also 1/20th the dosage of conventional drugs," said Dr Gautam Goyal from the hospital. He was presenting his study at the ongoing Fifth Biennial International Metronomic and Anti-Angiogenic Meeting held in the hospital's Mumbai campus on Saturday. This mode of low-dose daily chemotherapy, better known in cancer circles as metronomics, works out easier on the pocket because most drugs used are out-of-patent regime. "We have a study in which breast cancer patients are being given diabetes drug metformin, which costs less than Rs 50 a month," said Dr Sripad Banavali, who heads the medical oncology department of Tata Memorial. The metronomics school of treatment emerged around 15 years ago, but no large-scale studies have been done. "It's a therapy we turned to when we realised many of our patients come from outside the state and live in near-poverty," said Banavali. Many patients barely get to have a square meal a day. So, instead of asking them to uproot themselves from their small towns, thes...

Tata Memorial Center Tata Memorial Center is one of the leading cancer care institutes and gets the privilege to treat one-third of the cancer patients in India. The start of the journey and foundation of Tata Memorial Center dates back to February 28, 1941. It came into being as a result of the vision of Mr. Dorabji Tata. The aim of establishing a hospital was to create an international standard cancer care center so that no one has to go outside the country to get treated for this fatal disease. Moreover, Tata Memorial Center is a comprehensive cancer care center located in Mumbai, the heart of India. There are several research and treatment units affiliated with Tata memorial Center coming up with the latest research and treatments. About 60% of the patients who come here for cancer treatments are treated free of cost and the deserving patients also get the financial support of 1 lac Indian rupees. The hospital is now one of the biggest cancer screening, cancer prevention, cancer-treating, and rehabilitation centers of India. It is built upon an area of around 54,000 square meters with the availability of 441 beds inside the territory. TMC takes more than 25 thousand patients yearly from different countries and almost 100 OPD patients on a daily basis. Why Choose Tata Memorial Center? Tata Memorial Center is a famous Asian Hospital that is known for the best cancer treatment management and care. More than 1000 people visit Tata Memorial Center daily. The hospital hires ...

Frequently Asked Questions for Cancer Treatment: For decades patients from Bangladesh have been coming to India for medical treatment. Even as medical facilities and infrastructure in their own country have undergone rapid changes, many still prefer India for serious or life-threatening ailments. Some of the Indian hospitals have a very strong brand presence in Bangladesh. E.g. Narayana Health led by Dr.Devi Shetty is the most preferred destination for Cardiac patients, Gleneagles is known for their Organ transplant capabilities, Apollo Hospital in Chennai and CMC Hospital in Vellore for multi-specialty treatments. Tata Memorial Hospital is the most preferred destination amongst fellow Asians for Oncology Treatment. Private hospitals have stepped up their organizational structure in such a manner that international patients have got assistance to reach them. But unfortunately, non-private hospitals like CMC and Tata Memorial Hospital have not reached out to provide special services to International patients. That is why when a Bangladeshi national or Sri Lankan National tries to avail facilities in Tata Memorial, they have to navigate through a maze of uncertainty. Treatment possible has started a new division to assist Bangladeshi and other international patients to receive medical attention in Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital. So let’s start by solving doubts or questions that one faces when they seek treatment in Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital, Mumbai, India. 1) How can a B...

MUMBAI: At the international cancer meeting in Chicago where doctors from New York's Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center presented the "astonishing" results of an immunotherapy drug that made colorectal cancer disappear from all patients in their trial, a team from Immunotherapy, the youngest branch of cancer therapy, is expensive, costing between Rs 2 lakh and 3 lakh per month. With such a price tag, immunotherapy is out of reach for 97% of the cancer patients that can benefit from it, said Dr Kumar Prabhash who heads the medical oncology department at Tata Memorial Hospital. So, in order to provide the benefit of immunotherapy to the poorest patient visiting the hospital, the team innovated. At the central government-run Tata Memorial Hospital, the medical oncology team added a tenth of the regular dosing of an immunotherapy drug called nivolumab to the treatment plan of 76 patients with metastatic head and neck cancer. This group got the low-dose immunotherapy drug at Rs 25,000 per month as against eight times the cost of the regular dosing. With low-dose nivolumab, they also underwent the regular chemotherapy regimen meant for their advanced disease. This group was compared with another group of 75 similar patients who only got chemotherapy. If the median overall survival was 6.7 months in the second group, it was 10.1 months in the first group. "In this first-ever randomised study, the addition of low-dose nivolumab led to improved overall survival and is an altern...