Hyderabad: Apollo Cancer Centres in association with Datar Cancer Genetics on Wednesday launched a ‘revolutionary’ blood test that can detect breast cancers at early stages in asymptomatic individuals with high accuracy, thus enabling timely diagnosis and treatment to save lives.
Termed as one of the most important developments in the history of oncology, the EasyCheck test only requires a small quantity of blood to help in the detection of breast cancer even before the first stage.
The EasyCheck will be available across India on 22nd June at all Apollo Cancer Centres. The breast test is being offered at a much subsidized cost of Rs 6000.
Commenting on the occasion, Dr Prathap Reddy, Founder and Chairman of Apollo Hospitals, said, “I humbly request the women of India to step out for themselves and make sure to get themselves tested at least once a year to make sure you are safe from breast cancer. The word cancer was like a death sentence before, majority of the people faced serious consequences on account of cancer.”
Speaking about the product, Rajan Datar, founder and chairman of Datar Cancer Genetics, said, “Unfortunately, most cancers are detected at advanced stages which necessitate more intensive and expensive treatments which have a greater risk of debilitating side effects and treatment failures.”
“The EasyCheck test works on detection of circulating tumor cells which are released by tumors. It will be our privilege to offer our other tests for other cancers, to make the detection of the disease as early as possible at stage I and II. We wish to expand this to other cancers like colon cancer, lung cancer etc,” he added.
Breast cancer in India
Breast cancer is the most common malignancy among women globally. It has now surpassed lung cancer as the leading cause of global cancer incidence in 2020, with an estimated 2.3 million new cases, representing 11.7% of all cancer cases. Epidemiological studies have shown that the global burden of Breast Cancer is expected to cross almost 2 million by the year 2030. In India, the incidence has increased significantly, almost by 50%, between 1965 and 1985.
The estimated number of incident cases in India in 2016 was 118000. As per data, in India, Breast Cancer accounted for 13.5% (178361) of all cancer cases and 10.6% (90408) of all deaths in 2020.
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