Praava Health to enable low-cost cancer testing and treatment
Praava Health, Bangladesh's fastest-growing healthcare brand, is supporting the research efforts of Dr Zaheed Husain, Praava's senior lab director of Cancer Diagnostics, and his work with the International Immuno-Oncology Biomarker Working Group that may enable inexpensive new diagnosis and treatment options for breast cancer and other forms of cancer.
Over the past three years, the Working Group has co-authored three scientific cancer-related manuscripts published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, and NPJ Breast Cancer, said a press release.
The manuscripts focused on a component of immune response called tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), associated with prognosis in some forms of breast cancer. Research and clinical data demonstrated that certain types of TILs also improve survival in other types of cancers as well.
Sylvana Q Sinha, CEO and Founder of Praava Health said, "Dr Husain's work in conjunction with the International Immuno-Oncology Biomarker Working Group is testament to his ongoing commitment to medical research and discovery. A great deal of progress has been made over the past several years in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, and this is due to the dedication of research groups like these."
"In the coming year, Praava Health looks forward to disseminating information and training on actionable biomarkers in cancer diagnostics and treatment. This will enable our oncologists to incorporate a valuable tool in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer," added Sylvana Q Sinha.
Members of the International Immuno-Oncology Biomarker Working Group include research labs, pathologists, clinicians and statisticians worldwide who are experts in the field of immune-oncology biomarkers.
The work of these specialists led to the approval of the use of TILs in breast cancer in 2019.
The use of TILs as a predictive biomarker could help a lot with cancer care in countries where traditional PD-L1 implementation is difficult, mostly because of the costs.
According to the press release, the group's research finds that "incorporating TILs into standard clinical practice should be strongly considered in both early and advanced TNBC and HER2-positive breast cancer.
TILs assessment at the time of diagnosis may enable a clinician to assess prognosis and in future inform therapeutic decision-making more accurately, is informative for predictive purposes, can help to interpret PD-L1 assays, and, certainly in lower-to-middle-income countries, may be considered as a screening tool before embarking on expensive immune-assays.