Cancer Care & Surgical Oncology

Cancer is the hardest thing on this site to write a page about honestly, because "cancer care" is not one treatment. It covers dozens of diseases behaving in different ways, and what is right for one person is irrelevant to another. Anyone offering you a package price for cancer treatment before seeing your pathology is selling something they cannot deliver.

What we can tell you is how getting a plan works, what travelling for treatment involves, and what to ask. The plan itself comes from oncologists who have read your biopsy and staging, not from us and not from a website.

How treatment gets decided

Modern cancer care is decided by a multidisciplinary tumour board — surgeon, medical oncologist, radiation oncologist, radiologist and pathologist reviewing your case together and agreeing a plan. That process matters more than any individual credential, and it is a reasonable thing to ask about directly: does this hospital run a tumour board, and will my case go through it?

Treatment usually combines surgery, systemic therapy such as chemotherapy or targeted agents, and radiotherapy, in a sequence that depends on the tumour type and stage. Sometimes systemic treatment comes first to shrink a tumour before surgery. Sometimes surgery is first. The sequence is not negotiable by preference.

Why the trip takes as long as it does

The indicative range is around three to five weeks, and it is the widest range on this site for good reason.

Diagnostics and review — up to a week. Hospitals normally repeat key imaging and frequently re-examine biopsy slides, because pathology review changes the plan more often than people expect. If your slides can be sent ahead, that saves days.

Treatment — highly variable. A single operation may mean one hospital stay. A course of radiotherapy runs over weeks. Chemotherapy is given in cycles, and some patients complete a cycle in India then continue at home.

Review before flying. Recovery from cancer surgery and tolerance of systemic treatment both vary, and the fit-to-fly decision is individual.

Because of this, we are more cautious with cancer estimates than any other category. You will get a range and a clear statement of what could change it, rather than a confident figure that falls apart on contact with your pathology.

What the written estimate covers

You receive an estimate naming the hospital, the consultant and their medical council registration number, the proposed plan as far as it can be known, a cost range from the hospital and the days to plan for. It will state explicitly which parts are firm and which depend on findings.

Ask specifically whether the figure includes pathology review, staging scans, theatre and stay, each planned chemotherapy cycle, radiotherapy fractions, and supportive medication — these are routinely quoted separately, and a low headline number often means most of them are outside it.

If something goes wrong, and other hard questions

Ask what happens if the plan changes after surgery, what an extended stay costs, and how care continues if you need treatment that runs longer than you can stay. Ask how they will coordinate with your oncologist at home, because most cancer care is a long relationship and a trip abroad is one chapter of it.

Our role: we are a facilitator. We match you to a hospital, arrange logistics and stay contactable. We provide no medical care and carry no clinical responsibility; your contract is with the hospital and any clinical claim lies against them under Indian law. We will not tell you a prognosis, compare survival between hospitals, or suggest treatment abroad will work better than treatment at home. Anyone who does that to a cancer patient is not someone to trust.

Continuity with your own oncologist

This is the part that most often goes wrong and the part we can genuinely help with. Cancer treatment is a sequence, and the value of a trip abroad depends on whether the team at home can pick it up cleanly.

Before you travel, tell your own oncologist what you are considering and ask what they will need back. After treatment, make sure you leave with the pathology report, operative notes, imaging on disc, the exact chemotherapy regimen and doses given, and the radiotherapy record if relevant. A summary letter is not enough for someone continuing your treatment.

Questions worth asking

• Will my case go through a multidisciplinary tumour board?
• Will you review my original biopsy slides, and what happens if the diagnosis changes?
• What is the plan in sequence, and what would alter it?
• Which parts of the estimate are firm and which depend on findings?
• What can be done at home instead of here, to shorten the trip?
• What exactly will you send my oncologist afterwards?

Recovery and going home

You leave with the full record — pathology, operative notes, imaging, regimens and doses, radiotherapy details, and a follow-up schedule. Insist on completeness rather than a summary; a future decision may hinge on a detail nobody thought to include.

We stay reachable afterwards and will help arrange remote review with the treating consultant where that is useful. Where care continues at home, our job is making sure your own team has everything, in a form they can use.