The wellness programs of the nation have been afflicted by one ailment or the other ascending the burden of diseases. In the era of proliferating love, compassion, and benevolence, the dismal truth of disorders and diseases perturbing all nations has downcast the eyes of mankind worldwide.
The health system is constantly making fierce attempts of eradicating the maladies counter attacking every defense that is transpired by the unknown causatives which have been individuated as bacteria, viruses, fungus, parasites, or variations and alterations (mutations) in our own DNA. The constant plaguing of the diseases has overburdened the system, yet it stands tall grueling day after day to maintain and increase the quality of diagnosis and treatments to recuperate from the disease burden.
One such broadening aspect is “Cancer” – a term that puts our life in a state of metamorphosis, seizing our mind into a nightmare. The incidence of cancer in India as projected is 1,392,179 for the year 2020 and presumes an occurrence of 1 case in every 9 Indians during their lifetime [1]. The perspective toward this humongous number plays an important role in how we prepare ourselves to deal with it.
Being a part of this health system and contributing to this tacit significance Lilac Insights have been rigorously revising and modernizing itself and its services to deliver comprehensive results that the country is in need of.
Expanding beyond the margins, we have been working towards establishing prime quality techniques to help unravel rare cancers associated with newborns. Although its incidences in India are lower than the other developed countries, yet considering a newborn battling for life, 30 to 124 cases per 10 lakh children is not a negligible number [2]. Solid Tumors such as Neuroblastoma, teratoma, and cancer of blood-forming tissues such as Leukemia are some of the more frequent types of neonatal cancer.
Neuroblastoma has evidence of co-relation with N-myc an oncogene protein that displays abnormal translocation of 17q chromosome, or loss of heterozygosity of 1p chromosome. The abnormal histological patterns of the tumor cells are accounted by the amplification of the associated onco-proteins. At Lilac Insights, we offer molecular test panels – ALL PANEL (deletion/duplication) by MLPA – which scrutinize mutated genes and chromosomes to diagnose and determine the magnitude of the disease.
Leukemia in newborn or neonatal leukemia is usually detected at birth; within the first 28 days of life, most of which are congenital. Initial manifestations may exhibit Acute myeloid leukemia and acute lymphoblastic leukemia for the most part [3]. Abnormalities identified as MLL gene translocation t(11:19), t(9:11), included in our – OncoinsightsTM Cytogenetic panel – Ploidy Analysis + FISH, intends to aid in its diagnosis.
Our extended effort of infusing significant technological advances in diagnostics to prepare the platform for cataloguing mutations in multiple cancers targeting both diagnosis and prognosis would assist in discovering and earmarking the fundamentals of cancer diagnosis.
References
- Mathur P, Sathishkumar K, Chaturvedi M, et. al. Cancer Statistics, 202: Report From National Cancer Registry Programme, India. JCO Global Oncology. 2020, 6:1063-1075.
- Arora RS, Eden TO, Kapoor G. Epidemiology of childhood cancer in India. Indian J Cancer. 2009 46(4):264-73.
- Roberts I, Fordham NJ, Rao A, et al. Neonatal leukaemia. Br J Haematol. 2018 182(2):170-184.
Author
Pritha Jayanta Roy
Lilac Insights Pvt. Ltd.