Biocon Foundation, the CSR arm of the Biocon Group, in association with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), organised the fifth edition of the Oral Cancer Task Force (OCTF) Conference on July 26, 27, 2024. The two-day conference on ‘Artificial Intelligence in Oral Cancer,’ was held at the IISc campus, commemorating World Head and Neck Cancer Day.
The conference brought together clinicians and scientists to discuss progress in oral cancer screening for early detection. Esteemed opinion leaders such as Dr GK Rath, Member, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board; Dr Vijay Chandru, Strand Life Sciences; Dr Praveen Birur, Vice Principal – KLESIDS & Lead – Oral Cancer Program Biocon Foundation; Dr K Govind Babu, Medical Oncologist, HCG Cancer Centre; Rajesh Sundaresan, Principal Investigator – AI-CoE, Debnath Pal, Principal Investigator – MIDAS project, and Dr Anupama Shetty, Mission Director, Biocon Foundation, graced the conference and added significant value through their collective expertise and insights. Dr Kumar Prabhash, Medical Oncologist, Tata Memorial Hospital and Dr Moni Abraham Kuriakose, Co-Founder, MD & CEO, Karkinos Healthcare also attended the conference virtually.
Dr Anupama Shetty, Mission Director, Biocon Foundation, said, “The publication of consensus guidelines for head and neck cancer, specific to the Indian subcontinent’s demographic and economic conditions, remains the annual highlight of the conference. Together, we are building a stronger, more resilient network dedicated to downstaging oral cancer in India.” Leading experts and researchers from organisations such as AIIMS Cachar Cancer Center and MPMMCC (Mahamana Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya Cancer Centre) shared advancements and best practices in preventing, diagnosing, and treating oral cancer.
AI-centre of excellence
The Biocon Foundation has partnered with IISc to undertake the AI Centre of Excellence in oral cancer projects. It is a multicentric study involving collaboration with 28 consortium partners, with IISc as the nodal centre. Biocon Foundation is the lead expert for phase 1 of the project. The project aims to develop an algorithm for an oral cancer screening tool – Aarogya Aarohan. This project emphasises the role of AI in healthcare. The goal is to create an AI-assisted mobile phone-based white light imaging system to classify oral lesions as high-risk or low-risk for oral cancer.
The expected outcomes include the development of an open-source, class B-certified oral cancer screening tool with acceptable sensitivity and specificity for potential deployment in health and wellness centres. This project also aims to empower healthcare workers to deliver quality care and develop compressed models that run on low-cost smartphones, enabling scalable point-of-care screening in low-resource settings, even in places with low connectivity, while being multimodal in tertiary care centres.
Biocon Foundation’s Oral Cancer Control Program (OCCP) programme focuses on the early detection of oral cancer in underserved communities. Since its inception, the programme has covered over 85,000 individuals across India of which 13 per cent have been identified as positive for Oral Potentially Malignant Disorders (OPMDs).
Debnath Pal, Computational Biologist, IISc, and one of the lead investigators in the AI in Oral Cancer initiative said, “AI can catalyse an enabling ecosystem for addressing different challenges in healthcare and medicine when pursued systematically starting from good quality data, creative algorithms and well-designed trials. Researchers and clinicians can complement each other in this endeavour to mutually benefit and raise the quality of not only science but the quality of care available to the patients as well.”
Rajesh Sundaresan, Dean, Division of EECS, IISc said, “It is highly appropriate that the AI-CoE effort is working towards enabling healthcare professionals to tackle one of the most common diseases of public concern in India. Our efforts, we hope, will help bring down the burden by leveraging technology. The two-day event fostered greater collaboration across disciplines and strengthened the AI-CoE initiative.”
Dr GK Rath, Member, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board said, “Integration of technology has always led to great advances in the medical field. AI is a tool which we need to deploy to our advantage. In view of the high burden of oral cancer, I am pleased to be a part of the OCTF conference, which aims to deliberate on developing AI-enabled point-of-care diagnosis for oral cancer and releasing the annual consensus guidelines in the management of oral cancer.”
Medical-imaging and information datasets for India
The Medical-Imaging and Information Datasets for India (MIDAS) is a national initiative led by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and ARTPARK-IISc. The goal of MIDAS is to create comprehensive medical imaging and other modality datasets that accurately represent India’s diverse population. This initiative aims to initially focus on improving the accessibility and effectiveness of medical imaging for screening and diagnostics, to assist healthcare professionals. MIDAS will operate as a technology-enabled hub and spoke system, facilitating the growth of high-quality medical datasets and fostering research and innovation in the health sector across India. The project involves collaboration across various institutions to collect and manage data, ensuring adherence to gold-standard guidelines for data quality and patient privacy. By providing a central platform to access this data, MIDAS will support AI model training for disease diagnosis and contribute significantly to the development of robust AI tools for public health, enhancing research and facilitating more effective evaluation of medical AI applications.
Dr Kumar Prabhash, Medical Oncologist, Tata Memorial Hospital said, “AI CoE is focused on early detection of oral cancer from imaging data, predictive analytics for treatment outcomes, and personalised medicine through genetic analysis. Thus having the potential to improve diagnostic accuracy and workflow efficiency for clinicians. Today’s platform showcases the latest AI advancements and fosters collaborations between researchers, clinicians, and AI developers in the field of oral cancer.”
Dr Moni Abraham Kuriakose, Co-Founder, MD & CEO, Karkinos Healthcare said “AI-CoE project undertaken as an initiative under MoE (Ministry of Education), is pathbreaking and fosters an interdisciplinary approach to overcome the global health burden of oral cancer.”
Consensus guidelines on the management of head and neck cancer
Biocon Foundation had taken the initiative to form the OCTF with a mission to ideate, educate and engage stakeholders and thereby, effectively downstage oral cancer in India in 2018. The OCTF is an independent multi-disciplinary task force comprising leading specialists. Under the aegis of OCTF, the first ever Indian clinical practice guidelines on management of head & neck cancer (HNC) were laid down and published in the Indian Journal of Cancer in February 2020. The guidelines have been periodically reviewed and revised. It has been recognised amongst the 13 worldwide clinical practice guidelines by Cancers, an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal of oncology.
At the fifth edition of the Oral Cancer Task Force Conference, the updated India-specific guidelines were unveiled which is being published in the Journal of Cancer Research Statistics and Treatment. The guidelines update was presented by Dr Neera Gupta General Manager – Medical Affairs and Clinical Development, Eris Life Sciences.