WHY NEXT-GENERATION SEQUENCING SHOULD BE THE NEW STANDARD OF CARE FOR LUNG CANCER PATIENTS IN INDIA?

Lung cancer burden is increasing in India, and the consistently high mortality numbers are a cause of concern. If we make NGS much more easily accessible, affordable, and expand programs such as the LuNGS alliance, it can become a standardized component for lung cancer treatment.

- By Dr. Anjali Kulkarni, Vice President, RWE Strategy and Analytics, 4baseCare

As per World Health Organization's 2022 global statistics, lung cancer accounts for 12.4% of all new cancer cases. On the home front, India reports 72,510 new lung cancer cases every year and more than 66,000 deaths annually. These high mortality numbers clearly indicate the need for targeted and much more personalized treatment approaches.

In conventional treatment approaches, most patients are treated using a one-size-fits-all approach. Be it chemotherapy or radiation, a standard treatment type has been in practice irrespective of the patient's genetic profile. These methods are definitely important and it continues to be in practice, driving consistent results. With the advancement of technology and genomics, new targeted therapies that are tailored to a patient's specific genetic makeup have shown promising results in improving treatment outcomes. One such approach is Next Generation Sequencing.

Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) - What and How?