CANCER BIOLOGY 2019

What is the scope of Radiation Oncology in India in the next 10 years?

Cancer incidence in India is less than in the West per 100000 population. With the given increase in pollution, lifestyle changes and increased awareness and diagnostic modalities it is likely to only increase.

Oncology is a multi-modality specialty and hence the role of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy in treatment of cancer will only refine and increase with time.

With the advent of refined modalities of Radiotherapy wherein, more conformity is achieved, the role will increase.

Added to it, conservative management as against morbid surgery will find more and more acceptance as results improve.

Therefore, in my opinion radiotherapy modalities like IMRT, IGRT, SRS and IORT will come up as time passes and results improve. Only caveat is spectacular development of targeted molecular therapy which may reduce the need for time consuming and more toxic radiotherapy.

And in India we have a long way to go before we reach a level of enough availability of this expensive modality. Hence, there is a lot of scope for this specialty in next 10 years to come.