Immunotherapy that boosts the in-born immunity of individuals to fight cancer cells is likely to revolutionise cancer treatment in the years to come, a leading oncologist said here on Tuesday.
"Now, immunotherapy is showing better results than chemotherapy. That is going to come in a very big way in the near future," Apollo Cancer Hospital director P Vijay Anand Reddy told.
"Body immunity, can we improve on, to fight against the cancer cells. That is called immunotherapy. Research is going on. Now, medicines have also come. They are showing better results than chemotherapy. Earlier, it was chemotherapy for cancer," he said.
The overall treatment cost of immunotherapy is presently high, but it will definitely come down, Reddy said.
"Patency is there for every drug. It's going to be minimum of one year (for cost to come down) and for some companies it is going to be two years," he said.
The beauty of immunotherapy is that it can be used in treatment of all types of cancer, he said.
Other than immunotherapy, advances have been made in radiation treatment for cancer, he said.
"It is so precise now. Radiation used to be five-seven weeks treatment. Now we are doing entire treatment in one or two days without hurting the patient…," he said.
The other advanced treatments include photon therapy in radiation oncology and the costs of radiation treatment would also come down, he said.
Reddy said about 12 lakh fresh cases of cancer were seen during 2016 in India and the number is expected to go up to 15 lakhs this year.
In India, lung cancer, gastro-intestinal cancer and head and neck cancers (throat cancers) are commonly found among men. Among women, breast cancer and cervical cancer are common and they are also prone to develop head and neck cancers, Reddy said.
Around one hour of daily physical exercise, a vegetarian diet or avoiding red meat by non-vegetarians, avoiding high salt, fried and masala foods and staying away from consumption of tobacco would help in prevention of cancers, he said.
He also said that annual health check-ups would lead to early detection of tumours, if any.