In a massive effort to make expensive cancer treatment accessible to financially weaker patients, the Government Doon medical college and hospital have decided to provide targeted gene therapy. This is a first-of-its-kind initiative in Uttarakhand started under the banner of the Ayushmann scheme. Dr. Daulat Singh, Professor, and Head, Oncology Dept.stated that gene therapy in addition to other treatments like chemotherapy can provide the best results. Also, such combination therapies are found to be less taxing on physical and mental health.

However, TOI has recently reported that Uttarakhand is far behind the National average in cancer screening with GDMCH still missing a basic radiation facility. A screening survey for cervical cancer conducted in 2020-21 reported that Uttarakhand had an average screening rate of 0.4% in comparison to the national average of 1.9. Similar patterns were echoed for the breast cancer and oral cancer survey in the same period with 0.2% and 0.3% screening rates in comparison to the national average of 0.9 and 0.9 respectively.

Source: ET Healthworld