Hyderabad: The financial burden of Stage 3 and Stage 4 cancer in patients is high as these stages require surgery, radiation or chemotherapy, or a combination of the three treatments. These are not only costly, but also have severe side effects.
While Aarogyasri and Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences have a standard treatment procedure with basic drugs costing not more than Rs 1.5 lakh, corporate hospitals charge anything between Rs 5 to Rs 10 lakh for the treatment.
Dr Sai Ram, senior clinical oncologist at MNJ cancer hospital explained, “When a patient comes with Stage 3 and Stage 4 cancer, the treatment is aggressive. But if they come with Stage 1 or Stage 2, they can be given oral chemotherapy or hormonal therapy and there is a possibility of controlling the disease. This is not possible in the last two stages where the toxicity due to the drugs is also high in the patients and hence there are severe side-effects.”
