An advanced oncology treatment center was recently launched in Gurugram under the name of Dr AV Cancer Institute of Personalized Cancer Therapy and Research. The center was inaugurated by Kaushal Kishore, minister of housing and urban affairs of India, on 15 March 2023. Various cancer experts of all specialties, including medical, surgical, radiation, and pathology from various premier institutes of the country attended the event.
Special invitees included eminent oncologists such as PK Julka, Jyoti Wadhwa, Suneel Garg, Ankit Batra, Peush Bajpai, Arun Goel, AK Anand, and Nitesh Rohatgi. It was also attended by pharma and diagnostic industry personnel who are into this sphere of genomic testing, targeted therapies, immunotherapies and precision oncology.
The founder and director of the Dr AV Cancer Institute, Amit Verma, said, “All patients should undergo genomic testing using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) at the time of cancer diagnosis in order to find various treatment options. I believe in empowering patients to make the right treatment selection for themselves even when they have failed multiple lines of treatments.” He envisions opening multiple centers across the country to make precision oncology treatment accessible and affordable. He has been in the practice of precision oncology for more than a decade and believes in spreading awareness and promotes education about the same.
“Many patients from India go abroad to get newer forms of cancer treatment. Now, a contemporary treatment based on precision oncology is available in India. This contemporary approach is based on the newer science of precision oncology where tumor genes are studied and the right treatment including targeted therapy and immunotherapy is given to the patient either alone or in combination. This treatment attacks the cancer cells and the underlying survival mechanisms utilized by the cancer cells. This is more effective and has less side effects as compared to blanket chemotherapy based on the stage and histology of the tumor,” he adds.
