Biocon Foundation, the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) arm of the Biocon Group, held its annual Oral Cancer Task Force Conference in Bengaluru.

The second edition of the India-specific Consensus Guidelines for the Management of Head and Neck Cancer (HNC), developed by the Oral Cancer Task Force (OCTF) was released to commemorate the World Head and Neck Cancer Day, on July 27.

The updated India-specific guidelines will help oncologists improve treatment outcomes of HNC patients by following evidence-based clinical practice.

At the conference, Dr Praveen Birur, principal investigator for the study titled ‘Oral Potentially Malignant Lesion Atlas Project: Validating the Efficacy of a Novel, Point-of-Care Diagnostics and Developing an Integrated Multidimensional, Prognostic Nomogram,’ said the unique Oral Potentially Malignant Disorders (OPMD) Atlas Project will lead to the creation of a first-of-its-kind, multidimensional data-centric platform for the prevention, early detection, and treatment of oral cancer.   

The OPMD Atlas Project aims to evaluate and accurately deploy point-of-care (PoC) diagnosis systems in the national healthcare system to enable accurate screening, detection and prognosis of OPMD patients. This will be a key advance in the war against oral cancer as oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMD) are the precursors of over 80% of oral cancers.

The research project, which is funded by a Central government grant, is an outcome of the collaboration amongst four eminent institutes, namely, Mazumdar-Shaw Medical Foundation, the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, KLE Society’s Institute of Dental Sciences, Bengaluru, the Department of Preventive Oncology, NCI-AIIMS – Jhajjar, and the Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital, Varanasi, catalysed by Biocon Foundation.

The project will leverage advances in data science and Artificial Intelligence to combine datasets, including clinical information, lesion image, cytology, pathology, genomics and proteomics, and result in a first-of-its-kind, multidimensional data-centric platform. 

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Founder & Managing Trustee, Biocon Foundation, said “I believe the Oral Potentially Malignant Disorders (OPMD) Atlas project will help in developing a cost effective and sustainable national oral cancer control programme in India.”