VVR - IAS Exam Preparation
Current Affairs:(Polity, Governance and International Relation)
A software to track cancer treatment:
- A lot is known about cancer in India — it is one of the leading causes of death, and nearly 0.8 million new cases occur every year. But how much is known about the outcomes of the treatment of cancer? About how patients react to drugs and how they fare long term?
- To gather and analyse this data, Ramesh Nimmagadda, director of medical oncology at Apollo Hospitals, has come up with a software programme called ‘OncoCollect’.
How this will work?
- Software could be installed on a desktop or to a hospital’s LAN, enabling doctors to key in details of patients. Drugs used in cancer treatment are part of the software, and doctors can choose the regimen they are using. All other forms of cancer treatment are also covered in the software including surgery and radiotherapy.
- They could then record responses seen, toxicity/side effects, survival periods and relapses.
- Each doctor could analyse his own data for patterns and could also contribute to a pool of data generated, both within a hospital and across the country. The pool could then be studied by data analysers for larger trends. Both the patients’ and the doctors’ identities become anonymous when the data is pooled.
- The software is equipped for all cancers and lymphomas except blood cancers.