Department of Health & Family Welfare, Government of Punjab, Roche Pharma India and Niramai Health Analytix has jointly partnered as part of Punjab Breast Cancer AI-Digital project to accelerate screening and treatment for Breast Cancer in the state of Punjab. The project also known as Pink Project will facilitate timely identification, treatment initiation and robust referral pathways across the various health centers through technology enabled, live patient tracking support.
“This public-private partnership is a significant step forward in the battle against cancer and has the potential to reduce the diseases burden said Dr. Vijay Singla, Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Punjab while also adding that a total of 15, 000 screenings of suspected females are targeted to be carried out in a span of one year and also mobilization of people for the screening. Due to the high societal impact and multidisciplinary management of cancer, it will ensure linking all tertiary care centers, down-staging of disease leading to lower costs of treatment and ensure access to best and innovative treatment for all.”
The PINK project will focus on state-wide screening for early detection of breast cancer cases with an innovative solution – a thermal based AI enabled platform for screening, linking to an integrated referral pathway for end-to-end closure with follow-ups for diagnosis and treatment initiation.It will also include the epidemiological data generation to further support policy planning and mapping of the spread of Breast Cancer cases. The project aspires to proactively initiate early detection and maintain consistency with its digital referral capability by linking tertiary care centers. This would immensely help downstaging the disease as early detection would lead to lower costs of the treatment as compared to patients that were diagnosed in later stages.
These partnerships will not only increase attention towards timely detection and management of breast cancer in Punjab but also strengthen efforts already underway across National Health Mission (NHM) through National Program for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke (NPCDCS),” said Kumar Rahul, IAS Mission Director, NHM and health Secretary Punjab.
Screening solutions and the digital referral pathway would be integrated and patients information would be shared from the Niramai software to the digital referral pathway, and provide end-to-end closure of screening, diagnostics and treatment modalities. The core technology of Niramai software has been developed using patented machine learning algorithms for reliable and accurate detection of breast cancer, which are non-invasive and respect the privacy of the patient.
Roche will act as a Technical Partner for project planning, implementation & monitoring of the state-wide Breast Cancer project plan. This will help in strengthening the referral pathway through digitization. The digital system will help capture epidemiological statistics and provide GIS mapping of screened patients to generate MIS reports for the government officials.
This project will enable the state of Punjab with two patient navigators/counselors who will be responsible for end-to-end support to the patient in the case of a positive cancer detection. These patient counselors will educate patients on various care processes, and provide support to reduce anxiety and fear. Capacity building sessions for doctors and other healthcare professionals on cancer epidemiology, its signs and symptoms, clinical features, diagnosis and treatment pathways.
“Early diagnosis for Breast Cancer is extremely crucial to reduce mortality rates and provide appropriate treatment pathways. Partnership with the Department of Health, Government of Punjab and Niramai will foray a multidisciplinary approach within the oncology ecosystem to not only make breast cancer treatment highly effective but also ensure every breast cancer patient gets access to holistic care,” said V. Simpson Emmanuel, Managing Director & CEO, Roche Pharma India.
Dr. Geetha Manjunath, Founder and CEO, Niramai Health Analytix says, “Breast cancer cases account for almost one fourth of all cancer cases in women in India. The treatment for breast cancer can be highly effective, especially when the disease is diagnosed early, and this project is an important milestone for us. We will support the government of Punjab in carrying out the state-wide screening for early detection of breast cancer cases along with Roche, who will support us in project planning as well as establishing a referral pathway. With this collaboration, we also hope to achieve higher survival probabilities with Niramai’s innovative solution— a thermal based AI enabled platform for screening.”
