Onco.com was felicitated for enhancement of cancer care at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference, held at Bangkok, Thailand between October 11 and October 13, 2019.
Onco.com is an Online Cancer Patient Assistance Pathway (OCPAP) built to help cancer patients get personalised treatment guidance as per international standardised protocols. The conference theme was “Breakthrough: A Global Summit for Oncology Innovators”.
The ASCO Breakthrough Summit brought together the latest in oncology practice, scientific discovery and technological advances to transform the future of cancer care. The abstract of the study titled “Development of OCPAP technology platform to provide treatment guidance for cancer patients in developing countries” being considered as one of the highest-rated research topics submitted by experts from across the globe was presented by Dr. Amit Jotwani, co-founder and chief of medical affairs, Onco.com.
OCPAP is the first service in the world to provide customised cancer treatment guidance, helping patients with the right information they need to navigate their journey through cancer. Through this, any patient or caregiver can visit onco.com and avail free preliminary treatment guidance by providing basic information like organ affected, stage of the disease, patient’s general condition and treatment done to date.
The algorithm then provides them with diagnostic and treatment assistance as per international protocols, based on proprietary knowledge database created by Onco.com’s team of oncologists.
“Given these challenges and gaps in the sector, OCPAP can help millions of cancer patients, with limited access to qualified oncologists and get a better understanding of their treatment options,” said Dr. Jotwani.
“We aim to fill the gaps in cancer care across developing countries, as well as help patients and doctors make the right treatment decisions based on the latest treatment protocols. It gives us immense pride that our abstract was selected by ASCO’s awards committee, giving us the confidence that we are on the right path in achieving our goal of making cancer care more patient centric,” he added. According to recent statistics, there are 3 million cancer patients in India, with 1.5 million new patients being diagnosed every year. This number is slated to touch 2 million by 2022.
Although the burden of cancer in developing countries is less than their developed counterparts, the proportion of cancer-related deaths is 70% in these countries.
As per the Global Survey of Clinical Oncology Workforce 2018, for every 10,000 cancer patients, there are only 1 to 5 trained oncologists in developing countries like India, while there are 50 to 100 in developed countries. Likewise, the new patients-per-oncologist ratio ranges between 700 to 10,000 in developing countries compared to 70 to 200 in developed nations.
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