Early Detection of Oral Cancer

Biocon Foundation is acutely aware that for a healthcare program to be truly effective it must find ways to reach out to people no matter where they live or how poor they may be. To this end, the foundation's Arogya Raksha Yojana network of clinics has been actively engaging with local communities in an effort to build networks of peer health educators. These educators are trained in basic best practices in health and hygiene and act as our interface with the community. Through them we are able to spread important health messages in a non-threatening, and thus, more effective manner.

The Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Centre & SANA have together developed a mobile oral cancer screening program. We are excited about the potential of this program that will help detect oral cancer in the early stages and find people who may have even a single risk factor and could be persuaded to make lifestyle changes to mitigate this risk. A simple set of questions and answers asked by the CHW, and checked on the mobile phone, can be combined with a picture and sent directly from the mobile phone to the central server in the hospital. Doctors in MSCC will then take over treatment of the patient.

Low cost mobile technology is a great way to extend the reach of this and other health screening programs. We are confident that this will benefit our communities and help in strengthening our disease management programs.

Biocon Foundation is ideally positioned to implement SANA – MSCC oral cancer screening program through our established clinics and networks of Community Health Workers (CHW’s) that each clinic has built up.

Implementation follows two very clear steps:

I. TRAINING THE HEALTH WORKERS

Training the CHW’s is critical to the success of the program. They are taken through the following steps before they start the screening:

• Basics of oral cancer – causes, recognition of symptoms, and treatment
• Objectives of the cancer screening program
• People-friendly and non-threatening ways to approach people with risk factors. The CHW must explain what the screening program covers, and how this will help the individual
• Using the mobile – the touch-screen mobile phone is very new for the CHW’s as is the module for screening. We ensure that the CHW is comfortable with the instrument and understands every aspect of the module.
• Explaining the need for a picture of the lesion, if any. The CHW must be able to communicate this to the individual in a non- threatening manner
• Explaining the action that needs to be taken in case the person has to be directed to the hospital  including health insurance access and benefits
• Ensuring that the patient goes to MSCC or any other cancer hospital

II. METHOD OF SCREENING

• Extricate information about families that have members who are 40 plus years old and exhibit one or more risk factors for oral cancer (e.g. chewing tobacco). This list will be extricated from the baseline survey that the CHW’s have already completed in many villages
• Return to these families, introduce the cancer screening program, get consent and proceed with the screening
• Once the screening is complete, the entire data collected, including the picture of the patient and the lesion, will be sent back to the MSCC and Biocon Foundation servers
• MSCC will contact the patient and follow up with diagnosis & treatment. Biocon Foundation will keep track of the patient and ensure to the best of their abilities that the treatment is availed of, as prescribed

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