In an interview with Sameer Kumar Sharma, he talks about the importance of proper diagnosis and staging of cancer in a patient to provide correct treatment.

Why is there less research in the field of medicine?
Hospitals deal with umpteen number of patients every day and their focus is on treatment. Research comes in only when there is sufficient time at disposal. Sometimes, we also experience difficulties in conducting research and making it lead to the conclusive stage.

What kind of difficulties do you confront in cancer research?
We, at MD Oswal Cancer Hospital, are confined to clinical research only. And in clinical research also, there is a high drop-out rate of the patients taken in sample size. Many a times, people skip their session and in such a situation, it becomes difficult as research remains incomplete.

Why is the drop-out rate so high?
Some patients visit once or twice and then go elsewhere to look for cheaper available options as a major chunk of patients are those who have got humble means and cannot afford treatment.
Various factors like ignorance, poverty and social stigma in some cases are the reason behind this. Patients want to try more than one line of medical treatment at one time in order to find a fast cure for the disease, little realising that cancer is a disease which takes a long time even for diagnosis as well well as treatment which is conducted in various sessions.