MUMBAI: The Tata Memorial Centre, the country’s premier cancer care institute, has begun work on a unique anti-cancer project in which medicinal plants will be cultivated on a 50-acre plot in Pen to assess their anti-cancer properties.
“The Maharashtra government has given us a 50-acre plot about 30 minutes by road from our ACTREC centre in Kharghar,’’ said TMC director Dr Rajendra Badwe.
Work on constructing a compound wall around the plot has begun in that project which has got a Rs 300-crore grant from the Indian government. Only medicinal plants believed to have anti-cancer properties will be cultivated and studied scientifically.
Every year, cancer kills 7 lakh Indians every year and roughly affects 10 lakh. TMC gets over 75,000 new patients from across India every year at its Parel and Kharghar hospitals. Studies into alternative and supportive therapies isn’t new for TMC researchers. They started a study over three years back to test the efficacy of certain ayurvedic medications in helping patients with ovarian cancer. Another ongoing study looks at an ayurvedic medication’s ability to control peripheral neuropathy (nerve disorder) that is the side-effect of a chemotherapy drug. A five-year ongoing study found the “encouraging” effect of regular yoga on breast cancer patients and survivors. TNN
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