Dr. P. Vijay Anand Reddy is a pioneering radiation oncologist and Director & Senior Consultant at Apollo Cancer Centre, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad. A global-trained specialist and founder of CURE Foundation, he has devoted over three decades to advancing evidence-based, compassionate cancer care for all sections of society. Recognised with the Padma Shri for Medicine (Oncology), he has led innovations in hypofractionated radiotherapy, organ-preserving treatments and multidisciplinary tumour boards, while championing childhood cancer care, tobacco control and palliative services. His work bridges cutting-edge technology with social responsibility, transforming outcomes and perceptions around cancer in India.
In this exclusive interview with Rashmi Kumari of Neo Science Hub, Dr. Reddy reflects on lifestyle-driven cancer risks, the birth of CURE Foundation, and why early detection matters more than ever. He explains how shorter, precise radiation regimens evolved, why multidisciplinary tumour boards are non‑negotiable, and how hub‑and‑spoke models can narrow urban–rural gaps. He also speaks candidly about patient narratives, the emotional rewards of oncology, and the deeper responsibility that comes with receiving the Padma Shri.
Over three decades, how has your understanding of who actually gets cancer treatment — and who is left out — evolved? How has that shaped your work?
Most often, unfortunately, the incidence of cancer is growing alarmingly high. I personally feel that we ourselves are largely responsible for this increase. Our own day-to-day activities are the main reasons.
If you look at the cancers we commonly see, most of them are from the oral cavity to the anal canal — that means the entire gastrointestinal tract, including the food pipe and the oral cavity — and the lungs. All these organs are directly exposed to what we do every single day. That, unfortunately, is the main reason.
Almost 70% of the cancers we encounter can be prevented by some modification in lifestyle. That is where we are lagging. We are blindly following western lifestyles. We are not exercising. Our dietary habits have changed from predominantly vegetarian to largely non-vegetarian diets.
Smoking in our country is still very high. Chewing tobacco is, in my view, the most unfortunate habit anywhere in the world. This practice is almost unique to our country, and it is a major reason why the incidence of cancer continues to rise in India.
You founded CURE Foundation long before this Padma Shri. Could you tell our readers what CURE Foundation does and what prompted you to start it?
In our society, most people from urban, educated backgrounds, when they develop symptoms, will usually go to a doctor, get investigated, be diagnosed at an early stage, and are often cured.
But when you look at rural populations, especially children, they cannot articulate their symptoms clearly. Even if a child complains, many parents tend to ignore it. There is a myth that children do not get cancer.
If a child in a village, from a lower socio-economic background, develops cancer, that child still has every right to live a normal life. More importantly, childhood cancers are actually highly curable compared to adult cancers.
About 25 years ago, I had a few experiences that shook me. One was a child with a bone cancer in the limb. We could cure this child and save the limb with chemotherapy and a prosthesis. But the father said, “I cannot afford that kind of treatment. Please amputate my child’s limb.”
Another was a young child with an eye tumour. We could save both the eye and the vision through chemotherapy and sophisticated treatment. But the mother said, “We cannot afford that kind of treatment. You can remove my child’s eye.”
These two incidents disturbed me deeply. We managed to support both families, treat the children, save the limb, save the eye, and cure both. That experience convinced me that we needed an organised effort.
CURE Foundation was started about 23 years ago with the support of many well-wishers and donors. We have been able to treat and cure several underprivileged children, giving them back their lives, their smiles and, importantly, protecting their organs. That is the main goal of this foundation.
Beyond treatment, we also realised that early detection is critical. We are not afraid of cancer itself; we are afraid of late diagnosis. If you catch cancer at an early stage, the chances of cure are very high, and you can treat with simpler, less expensive methods. As cancer progresses from Stage I to Stage II, III and IV, the treatment becomes more complex and costly, and the cure rates go down.
Keeping this in mind, under CURE Foundation we conducted numerous cancer-awareness programmes across Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and the rest of the country. Through this awareness, many more patients now come to us in early stages, and we are able to cure them far more easily than those presenting with advanced disease.
So the main goals of CURE Foundation are:
- to take care of underprivileged children with cancer, and
- to create awareness so that cancer is detected early and prevented wherever possible.
Your book I Am a Survivor documents 108 survivor stories. What did those stories teach you? Did they change the way you speak to patients?
When a normal individual is told that he or she has cancer, it is like a bomb falling on the head. The immediate thought is, “I am not going to survive.” That kind of phobia and myth still exists strongly in our society.
When such patients come to us, they are often extremely depressed and have almost given up. However much we counsel them, they still carry that uncertainty and find it hard to believe that they can be cured.
Keeping this in mind, I started a “Freedom from Cancer” club. We invited volunteers who had been treated and cured and were leading normal lives. We took their contact numbers and requested them to come and speak to newly diagnosed patients.
When a cured patient speaks to someone who has just been diagnosed, the new patient gains courage and confidence — “If he or she can be treated and cured, I can also be treated and cured.”
From there, I began asking my own patients who had completed treatment and survived five, ten, even twenty years to share their stories — from the day they were diagnosed, through the treatment, the problems they faced during therapy, and how they are living a normal life now. Initially, many were reluctant to share, but I am grateful that a large number agreed.
We compiled stories from patients with tumours from the brain all the way down to the anal canal and limbs — all kinds of cancers. At the end of each story, I added a note explaining how to prevent that particular cancer, how to deal with it, how to get out of it and lead a normal life.
This book, I Am a Survivor, is one of its kind in the world. It has also been translated into Telugu and Hindi. It is especially helpful for newly diagnosed patients, guiding them on how to deal with a specific type of cancer and how to cope with the side effects during treatment.
In many ways, it helps patients enormously. As far as I know, there is no similar book anywhere else. It is available on Amazon and in bookstores, and it has become a very important tool in how we communicate hope and practical guidance to patients.
Before you introduced shorter radiation regimens, what did you need to be sure of to feel they were safe and right for Indian patients?
Unlike surgery, where a patient undergoes an operation and is discharged in two or three days, radiation therapy traditionally is a long, protracted treatment — five to six weeks, sometimes even eight weeks — often with significant side effects. Patients get worried as soon as they hear they need radiation.
Now imagine a patient coming from a village, a different district, or another state. Staying in a city for six to eight weeks just for radiation treatment is extremely difficult — emotionally, logistically and financially. You have treatment costs, stay, food, loss of income, travel expenses — everything adds up.
From the institution’s perspective as well, treating one patient for six to eight weeks consumes a lot of machine time and manpower. So, from both sides, if you can safely shorten the duration of treatment, it is a huge advantage.
High-precision radiation technology has evolved immensely over the years. With image guidance and focused delivery, we are now able to give higher doses per fraction with great accuracy, sparing normal tissues. That allows us to design short-course radiation treatments — hypofractionated regimens — without compromising cure rates.
Today, especially for tumours in the brain, lung, liver and other sites in the body, we are able to treat in three to five fractions and cure many patients without ever using a knife. The key has always been to ensure that these shorter regimens are scientifically validated, technically precise and safe for our patients.
When you were building Apollo Cancer Centre at Jubilee Hills, what were the principles you absolutely refused to compromise on?
The most important principle is ethics. From day one, we made the multidisciplinary tumour board mandatory.
When a cancer is detected, each patient may require one or more of three main modalities: surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. The stage, the site, the type of cancer — all of these vary from patient to patient, and so does the optimal combination of treatments.
If a patient needs all three modalities, the sequence becomes crucial: which treatment should be given first, second and third. The first treatment has to be the best possible treatment. If the initial treatment is inadequate or inappropriate, the chance of cure drops drastically.
When a patient goes to an individual doctor in isolation — say, only a surgeon — the natural tendency is for the surgeon to say, “My job is to operate; I will do the surgery and then you can see others.” That is not the right way to treat cancer.
So we insisted that there is no need to hurry into treatment. Patients should take a bit of time and obtain a proper opinion from a group of specialists, without individual bias. In our tumour board, the medical oncologist, radiation oncologist and surgical oncologist sit together, review the patient’s history, stage, site and cancer type, and then decide what is the best modality and the best sequence of treatment.
We made it compulsory that every case passes through this multidisciplinary tumour board. That ensures a correct, scientific and unbiased approach. When you do that, the chances of cure are very high. That culture of ethics and collective decision-making is something we have never compromised on.
India is rapidly adopting advanced technologies. How can we use high-end cancer treatments and AI tools without leaving patients in remote areas behind?
Decentralisation is already happening. Earlier, patients used to travel from Hyderabad to Mumbai for treatment. Today, in Hyderabad, hardly anyone needs to go outside the city for radiation, robotic surgery, chemotherapy, immunotherapy or any major oncology service.
Now, every district in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh is getting cancer centres. Patients can be treated in many more locations. So access at the district level is improving.
In villages, we cannot expect very high-end technology at every Primary Health Centre. But we can adopt a hub-and-spoke model. At the village level, we can provide telemedicine, screening, basic pathology and radiology, mammography and so on. These images and reports can be read at the central hub, and then patients who need advanced care can be referred appropriately.
Apollo has already developed such hub-and-spoke networks. Patients are screened and investigated in villages and small towns; results are interpreted centrally; and then patients are transported to nearby secondary centres or to the main hospital for higher-end treatment when needed.
Not every patient requires high-end technology. Basic but correct treatments can and should be done at the doorstep — in villages, towns and district headquarters. Those who genuinely need advanced technology can then be moved to major centres.
Today, connectivity and transportation from villages to cities are much better. There are also many support systems: government schemes, corporate and insurance support, and foundations like ours. Many organisations are ready to help. Because of all this, we are steadily reducing the gap between rich and poor. Our aim is to ensure that every patient can receive appropriate care.
On a personal note, what is your happiest moment as an oncologist? And when you are not working, how do you spend your time?
My happiest moments are always linked to the love, affection and warmth that patients show. The teary eyes, the warm hugs, the small gestures of gratitude — these are priceless.
Patients often believe that a cancer diagnosis is a death sentence. When we treat them and they are cured, they sometimes see us as gods. In reality, we are just human beings applying scientific knowledge. But we receive all the credit. That is the biggest happiness I experience every day.
The passion I have for this work and the compassion I feel for my patients are what take me from home to the hospital every morning. Around 80% of my life is spent in the hospital and 20% at home, but I have no complaints. I am happy to be with my patients.
The Padma Shri that I have received, I would love to dedicate it to my patients — for their trust in me, for their courage, and for their immense resilience in fighting this disease.
After receiving the Padma Shri, what new responsibilities do you feel — towards young doctors, policy-makers and patients?
I feel deeply humbled and honoured by the Padma Shri. It is a national recognition, and I am truly happy. But along with that happiness and humility, I feel even more responsible.
Whatever I have been doing so far, I now feel the need to intensify it. My main goal going forward is to spend more time on cancer prevention and early detection. Treatment, in some form, every doctor will continue to do.
Even in corporate hospitals, we must create an environment where not just the patient but also the attendants, the community and the broader society understand that prevention is better than cure, and that early detection is crucial. Early detection helps immensely — it improves cure rates, simplifies treatment and reduces costs.
We must focus much more on prevention and early diagnosis than we did in the past. Research in cancer treatment is ongoing worldwide. Early-stage disease, Stage I and II, is already highly curable in most cases. The real challenge is patients who come in Stage III and IV. We have to conquer those stages as well. Many innovations have come in surgery, radiation, immunotherapy and targeted therapies. We are almost there. Today, we are able to cure 70–80% of patients across stages with the right combination of treatments. The responsibility now is to take this knowledge and these advances deeper into society, to prevent cancer where possible, to detect it early, and to ensure that no one is left behind.
