Actor and Pinkathon creator Milind Soman visited Apollo Speciality Hospital, Chennai to increase awareness on breast cancer.

Proton therapy will provide Apollo’s team of Oncologists another critical tool in the fight against Cancer. What is Proton Therapy? Proton therapy is an advanced form of radiation therapy that uses beams of high-energy protons rather than traditional X-rays to irradiate a tumor. The protons are precisely aimed at cancerous cells, attack their DNA and induce their destruction. While X-rays tend to also affect surrounding healthy tissues, protons deposit most of their energy at a precise and measurable location that can be calibrated. This phenomenon is called the Bragg peak and allows to significantly reduce the negative effects usually affecting healthy tissues. With this inherent characteristic of protons, it is thus possible to control the radiation dose, to delimit the irradiated region and to identify and treat the tumor with unmatched precision, efficiency and safety. Clinical advantages of Proton Therapy Due to the unique properties of protons, Proton therapy allows the treatment of tumors with unmatched accuracy, security and efficiency. The administered dose is focused on the tumor and spares healthy surrounding tissues, thereby reducing side effects such as radiation-induced cancers. Due to their intrinsic physical properties, X-rays used in traditional radiation therapy can damage healthy tissue. They indeed have the particularity to pass through biological matter and tissues, leaving a large dose of radiation before and behind the tumor. Protons, on the other hand, are stopped at a certain point and deposit most of their energy at a precise and controllable depth in the patient’s body.  

Patients will get reminders through SMS, voice calls and even counselling if they skip taking the prescribed TB drugs. A special software has been developed that will automatically upload patient information to a TB notification website – Nikshay of the Government of India. The software at the same time will support treatment adherence for patients. . Ms. Sangita Reddy, Joint MD,Apollo Hospitals Group, launched the programme. While launching the intervention programme, hospital officials said that out of 2.2 million (22 lakh) fresh cases, 50 per cent prefer private sector for TB treatment. “At present, there is no automatic mechanism in place to notify TB cases to Government authorities. There is no system of follow-up of cases. The new software will address both these issues. The success rate for TB treatment is over 95 per cent. However, the adherence levels to the drugs is low,” said Project Director, The Union,Mr.Sarabjit Chadha. The software would be tested on a pilot basis at Apollo Hospitals and based on the response would be scaled-up. Hospital officials said that The Union was implementing the project to involve all private health care providers in delivering effective and quality TB services. “The software will send reminders everyday to the patients to take medicines. This is very important because in our experience, once patients start feeling better, they tend to discontinue medicines. This invariably causes complex drug resistant TB,” says Head, Infectious Diseases, SunitaNareddy  

India’s first keyhole multiple bypass surgery on Suman Singhal, aged 53 years, was conducted by Dr Naresh Trehan at the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, Delhi last week. It took him less than four hours to perform the scarless surgery, without cutting any bone of the patient. This technique uses a combination of small holes in the chest and a small incision, made indirectly over the coronary artery to be bypassed. It is often performed using robotics and video-imaging, which help the surgeon operate in a small area. It is the first of its kind surgery. It will benefit patients, especially women. The scar is not seen as it is below the breast. In conventional bypass, the sternum (chest or breastbone) is cut open, which takes at least eight weeks to heal. This is the first time in India multiple grafts have been put, especially at the back of the heart, through minimally invasive coronary surgery.    

Combined heart and lung transplants – a rare surgery which was previously used as a last resort to treat end-stage lung disease is now being peformed in large numbers as there is an alarming rise in number of patients being referred to Cardiothoracic consultants at a much later stage when there is little to salvage. Senior Consultants, Cardiothoracic and Transplant surgeons, Dr Paul Ramesh Thangaraj, Dr Sunder T and Dr Madhan Kumar discussed how comprehensive interdisciplinary end-stage lung disease management has ensured good success rates at Apollo Hospitals. Speaking at the conference, Dr Paul Ramesh said, “The heart and lungs are intricately entwined organ systems. End stage lung disease can cause failure of the heart and end stage heart disease can cause failure of the lungs. Combined heart and lung transplants are an option for selected patients. A lung alone can be transplanted in those patients where the heart is not irreversibly damaged by lung disease. This calls for increased awareness and early referral. “ Apollo Hospitals, Chennai has performed heart and lung transplants on 6 patients in the last 18 months. It has also done the most number of combined heart and double lung transplants in India. The unit has also successfully performed this procedure on a 67 year old (this is second oldest patient in the world to receive this operation – the oldest was 68 year old). Chennai, over the last few years, has witnessed a lot of transplants, but unfortunately there is little documentation on success rates of these transplants. The donor’s family goes through a lot before taking this huge decision. But what happens after they donate their organs? What happens to people who receive these transplants in the long term? Have their lives been changed by the transplant? Has the ultimate altruistic act of the donor family made any impact on the lives of the people who received the gift? Patients Mr Hanifa, Mr Asokan, Ms Devanayaki and Ms Aruna who successfully underwent transplants were also present to address and break common myths associated with transplants.  

In case of a liver transplantation, the liver is normally used for a single recipient, occasionally split for the benefit of an adult and child, but in this occasion, the donated liver was successfully split and transplanted in two adults; a feat that is rarely achieved. Surgeons who have also performed the first Multi-Visceral transplant in India repeated this rare feat by performing an isolated Intestinal transplantation from the same donor to a young adult who had been struggling for life since childhood due to intestinal failure. Simultaneously, surgeons also successfully transplanted the abdominal wall of the same donor over and above the intestines of another recipient, in-order to overcome the difference in size between the donor and recipient’s abdomens – a first of its kind in South India. These series of feats was achieved by The Centre for Liver Disease & Transplantation, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai led by by Dr.Anand Khakhar,Senior Consultant, Program Director and Dr.Anil Vaidya, a leading Multi-Visceral transplant surgeon from Oxford University along with the CLDT team comprising of Dr.Manish Varma,Consultant; Dr.Anand Ramamurthy,Consultant; Dr.Mahesh Gopashetty, Consultant; Dr.Bipin Vibhute, Consultant and Dr.Prashant Rao, Consultant who undertook this endeavor with courage and outstanding clinical skills.

  Hip Arthroscopy is a cutting edge procedure that involves viewing the interior of the hip joint through a arthroscope, and then using minimally invasive techniques to treat the disorder. Swifter, safer and with superior success rates, experts are convinced that hip arthroscopy will eventually reduce the need for replacement by as much as 50%. It is an intricate and technically demanding domain that has been perfected by very few healthcare providers, globally. Apollo Institute of Orthopaedics is leading the revolution in our country. The Group is launching the first centre of excellence in Hip Arthroscopy in India. This comes on the back of intensive training, assembling a team of highly skilled doctors, and making huge investments in infrastructure.

The World innovation Summit for Health (WISH), a global initiative of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, is a melting pot of Ministers, experts, policymakers and academics all dedicated to overcome the growing health threats of today. At the summit, Apollo Hospitals showcased its eACCESS initiative, which aims to make critical care specialists available round the clock in order to provide high quality care to patients in the ICU. The state-of-the-art hardware and software products enable clinicians to connect to and monitor multiple ICUs from a central location. The central command center acts as a hub and the peripheral ICUs as spokes. Clinical data from equipment connected to patients in the peripheral ICUs is displayed as a “dashboard”, enabling continuous monitoring of vital data and laboratory values alongside the patient’s electronic medical record. This initiative will benefit hospitals that face challenges managing ICU patient.

Kidney transplants are an expensive surgical intervention for patients suffering from renal failure. Under the programme, titled ‘Peace Clinic’, the two healthcare institutions will work together on cases of patients who are in need of kidney and liver transplants. The diagnosis and screening will be conducted by doctors at Dr.Ziauddin hospital, who will then discuss the case with experts at Apollo Hospitals in India. For now, the two medical facilities have jointly set up a combined liver ward for pre- and post-transplant care at Dr.Ziauddin hospital. At this facility, the patients will be assessed for their transplant needs and then referred to India for the procedure, if necessary. The experts also plan to add an internet-based help facility for patients in addition to a telephone helpline. Speaking at the launching ceremony of the Peace Clinic, Apollo Hospitals Group Medical Director, Dr.Anupam Sibal said, “This programme will not only save money and time for the citizens of Karachi, but will also give them access to better health facilities.” He added that till now, they had received approximately 540 cases of kidney and liver transplantation from Pakistan. “Each year, we receive around 100 to 140 cases from Pakistan.” The success rate of these cases is almost 90 per cent, he said. Dr.Sibal hoped that through this flagship programme, they would be able to bridge the geographical barriers and provide better health facilities to the people of Pakistan. The Medical Superintendent of Dr.Ziauddin Hospital, Dr.Anoop Dawani said, “I am proud that Dr.Ziauddin Hospital is the only facility in Pakistan to have taken the initiative to address the transplantation needs of the people of our country”.  

Sapien Biosciences, a niche biotech venture backed by Apollo Hospitals, has entered into a collaboration with a Bangalore-based diagnostic start-up, OncoStem Diagnostics, for the development and validation of a novel Breast cancer recurrence prediction test. OncoStem has developed a unique panel of ‘prognostic and predictive’ proteomic markers that is indicative of the aggressiveness of the cancer and hence enables prediction of the risk of recurrence within the first five years of initial diagnosis. These markers are now being validated using retrospective tumor samples diagnosed with Stage 1, 2 or 3A Breast cancer. OncoStem is collaborating with Sapien to validate this test using such annotated tumor samples with associated treatment and outcomes. Once the test is validated, OncoStem and Sapien will pilot and commercialize this test across the Apollo network. Other recurrence prediction tests such as Oncotype DX (Genomic Health Inc.) and Mammaprint (Agendia Inc.) have been launched globally and have had significant impact in the industry even though these tests only apply to Stage 1 patients who are lymph node negative, hormone receptor positive. OncoStem’s test is a significant innovation in that it can predict recurrences in both lymph node and hormone receptors negative or positive patients and is applicable across all stages of cancer. Announcing this partnership Dr. Jugnu Jain, CSO – Sapien Biosciences said: “Sapien Biosciences was set-up as a bio – repository that will enable the development of cutting – edge diagnostics & therapeutics. The samples and associated medical data that are being systematically collated & ethically banked at Sapien are a very rich resource for the development of such novel diagnostic tests. Recurrence diagnostics in cancer is particularly dependent on the availability of reliable retrospective information which is acutely lacking in India. I am glad that Sapien is filling this huge gap and we are excited to be part of this collaboration with OncoStem to develop such a test that will represent a paradigm shift in Breast cancer treatment.” To highlight the importance of the diagnostic test that OncoStem is developing Dr. Manjiri Bakre, CEO, OncoStem Diagnostics said: “”OncoStem was founded with the vision of developing novel diagnostic tests to predict cancer recurrence, an area of huge unmet medical need. This Breast cancer recurrence diagnostic is the first of many such tests in development across several cancer types and is designed to predict the patients’ risk of cancer recurrence within the first five years of their initial diagnosis, based on the characteristics of their tumor sample. This will in-turn allow optimal & personalized treatment planning for each patient so that risk of such recurrence is minimized. We are excited to be collaborating with Sapien to validate our test using such a valuable resource of samples & associated data which is otherwise extremely difficult to obtain. This partnership will help us realize the potential of our novel diagnostic test and impact millions of Breast cancer patients worldwide.”” Commenting on the partnership, Ms. Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals says, “Apollo has been at the forefront of recognizing personalized medicine as the future of healthcare delivery and has been adopting cutting edge diagnostic tests to deliver better patient care & improve outcomes. Sapien was set-up with the vision of enabling such personalized medicine approaches and we are very excited to see this crystallize through partnerships such as this one with OncoStem. Cancer recurrence space is largely unexplored especially in India and needs immediate attention. I look forward to Apollo & Sapien pioneering the introduction & adoption of this important innovation from OncoStem across our network for the benefit of our patients.” The OncoStem Breast cancer recurrence diagnostic test is planned to be launched first within the Apollo network in India, followed by a worldwide launch in a phased manner starting late 2015-early 2016 and is steadily expected to garner market share in the highly lucrative Breast cancer recurrence diagnostic space which is currently valued at $ 3 B globally and is expected to grow at 18% CAGR. Sapien’s agreement with OncoStem includes a preferential launch of the OncoStem test across the Apollo Hospitals network through Sapien. Beside Breast cancer, the Sapien-OncoStem collaboration also anticipates development of several such cutting-edge recurrence diagnostic tests across other cancer types.  

Apollo Hospitals Group and The Republic of Macedonia signed a far-reaching agreement that will raise the standards of healthcare for the reformist Republic and the region. Ms. Anne Marie Moncure, CEO, Southern Region, Apollo Hospitals Group and His Excellency Toni Atanasovski, Ambassador of the Republic of Macedonia in India on behalf of its Ministry of Health signed the MoU. The MoU provides for observerships and training courses for medical specialists, nurses, technicians and other health professionals from the Republic of Macedonia at various locations across the Apollo Hospitals network in India. Further the agreement involves the numerous tertiary specialties including – Internal medicine, Surgery, Cardiac surgery, Thoracic surgery, Vascular surgery, Cardiology, Pediatrics, Gynecology, Anesthesiology, Neurosurgery, Orthopedic surgery, Ophthalmology, ENT, Neurology, Dermatology, Radiology, Radiotherapy, Urology, Plastic surgery, Nuclear medicine, Robotics and Transplant. “We have a special relationship with the Republic of Macedonia and have crafted this partnership to bring the benefits of Apollo’s healthcare model to them. The purpose behind this union is to provide quality education, training, and development to healthcare workers of the Republic of Macedonia. We also plan to launch Telemedicine services that will help physicians and patients living in Macedonia. We thank the Government of Macedonia for giving this unique opportunity to collaborate on a range of subjects.” said Ms. Moncure. The initiative was welcomed and appreciated by His Excellency Mr. Atanasovski, who stated that the Republic welcomes the Apollo Group to develop health infrastructure and help in capacity building in the health sector. The Republic of Macedonia has embarked on a series of reforms that will help further develop a sustainable, equitable and technologically advanced healthcare sector that is comparable to OECD and EU standards. The Apollo Group will extend its knowledge and technical expertise, gathered over its 30 years of establishment, to help develop clinical services and conduct specialist training along with second opinions from experts across the Group’s entities.

Asian Alliance Insurance PLC, that is part of the Softlogic Group signed of a Memorandum of Understanding with Apollo Hospitals, India. The unique brand of Asian ‘Health’ Alliance combines the Softlogic entities – Asian Alliance Insurance with Asiri Hospitals and Apollo Hospitals, India and is aimed at creating the premier Health Insurance platform in the country where clients and their families will have access to the best medical attention both locally and overseas. Asiri Hospitals are the market leaders in private healthcare in Sri Lanka with three hospitals in Colombo; Asiri Medical, Asiri Surgical and the flagship “Central Hospital”, in addition to two hospitals in the Southern province. Apollo Hospitals Group, for over thirty one years, has continuously excelled and maintained leadership in medical innovation, world-class clinical services and cutting-edge technology. Apollo hospitals are consistently ranked amongst the best hospitals globally for advanced medical services and research. As a Softlogic Group company, Asian Alliance premium customers – the AAA+ cardholders currently enjoy the benefit for cashless medical treatments, priority service and many other value added services when treated at any of the Asiri Group of Hospitals. The partnership with Apollo Group of Hospitals will enable these customers to enjoy further benefits including pre travel assessment by Asiri Hospital’s authorized physicians, super specialty care at Apollo Hospitals – India, review and follow-up in Sri Lanka, a 10% discount on Apollo preventive checkups, free Online medical opinion services, complimentary airport transfer for direct admissions in India and many more. Apollo Group will also have a representative in Sri Lanka who will act as a liaison for Asian Alliance Life customers who plan to travel to India as they will facilitate visa and other travel services. Speaking at the event, Mr. Iftikar Ahamed, Managing Director of Asian Alliance Insurance PLC said, “We are delighted to have Apollo Hospitals joining us to deliver world class healthcare solutions to our valuable clients. We hope to continue building our Health Insurance proposition which we feel is probably the fastest growing area of insurance and is set to grow dramatically as Sri Lanka per capita rises over the next years. Being the leading Health Insurance provider in the country, we constantly strive to serve our customers with the best products and services to meet their requirements on any occasion. The benefit of an insurance cover that has no country limitations at a time of poor health will be a tremendous boon to our clients.” Speaking on the occasion, Ms. Anne Marie Monecure, Southern Region CEO of Apollo Hospitals Group said, “Disease does not recognize boundaries and it’s critical therefore that modern healthcare recognizes this reality and is delivered in a seamless and collaborative manner to provide superlative care to every patient.” She further stated that “Apollo Hospitals is proud to associate with Asian Alliance Insurance and such an ‘Health Alliance’ is the need of the hour considering the ever increasing disease burden and ever changing disease pattern.”