Date:12/10/2004 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/10/12/stories/2004101201231700.htm

Back US cancer institute scouts for `alternative' medicine

Jayanta Mallick

Dr. Alvaro Martinez, Chairman, Department of Radiation Oncology, William Beaumont Hospital, Michigan, USA, with Mr Percy Shroff, MD, Elekta Instruments (India), during a press conference to launch IMRT facility in Kolkata on Monday. — Parth Sanyal

Kolkata , Oct. 11

AT a time when the Indian healthcare industry is emerging an international hub of medical tourism, the National Institute of Cancer (NCI) of the US is looking for therapeutic answers to cancer in alternative medicine systems in the country.

Dr Jeffrey D. White, Director of the Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine of NCI, told Business Line here recently that ayurvedic and homoeopathic medicines as practised in this country had attracted serious attention of cancer researchers worldwide.

NCI, which is part of the multi-billion dollar National Institute of Health of the US, is looking for research alliances with Indian partners in these areas.

As a first step, NCI has selected the city-based Prashanta Banerji Homoeopathic Research Foundation (PBHRF), for a collaborative research project for lung cancer treatment study on a "practice outcomes monitoring and evaluation system".

"Offers to Indian contract research organisations will be invited from October 15 to record the pre-clinical trial data and treatment progress on a designed protocol at PBHRF on a group of around 40 patients over a period of two years", Dr White informed.

This is a unique project for NCI, for, this was the first time it is involving itself with an alternative system of medicine outside the US.

It is foraying into research explorations into frontier sciences like nanotechnology on the one hand and esoteric systems such as homoeopathy on the other.

"Systemic reviews have not found homoeopathy to be a definitively proven treatment for any medical condition. In previous such researches, weakness in design and reporting, choice of measuring techniques, small number participants and difficulties replicating results have been found. We want to avoid such pitfalls. In this joint project, we want to reach the clinical trial levels, if the progress is found satisfactory", the NCI research official said.