India gets first National Liver Board aimed at counselling thousands of liver patients every year

While the initial counselling is free of cost for the patients, once the responses are provided and severity of the case is detected, the board will help the patient connect with the right doctor.

Five super-specialists, brought together by HexaHealth, a start-up to counsel on surgeries, have set up what is being called India’s first National Liver Board.

The board, started on the lines of oncology services ahead of World Liver Day on April 19, may be crucial for a country like India, which accounts for 20 percent of the world’s share of deaths associated with liver diseases even as liver issues such as acute hepatitis, liver cancer, and cirrhosis are the 10th most common cause of death in the country.

A staggering 10 lakh Indians are diagnosed with liver cirrhosis every year, according to the World Health Organisation.

“Liver patients suffer a lot due to lack of timely access to the right line of treatment. Some end up under medicines when surgery could have been a better option or vice versa,” said Ankur Gigras, co-founder, HexaHealth.

“At HexaHealth, we have seen patients reaching out to us when they are towards the last stages of the disease,” he said. “Similarly, the majority of senior specialists complained about patients reaching out to them late in their disease journey.”

How will the panel work?

This board, according to Gigras, has been constituted to attend to patients timely and recommend the most suitable treatment. It is being tried for the first time in the field of hepatobiliary sciences anywhere in the world, he claimed.

“India’s care provider ecosystem for liver diseases is fragmented into separate disciplines like hepatology, gastroenterology, surgical gastroenterology and GI surgery,” pointed out Gigras. Tumour treatments further go into medical oncology and radiation oncology and patients do not always end up at the right specialist the first time nor have the means to consult all specialists individually for their treatment.

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“Therefore, bringing specialists together on a single platform and helping patients with a single recommendation by all specialists together is of immense value,” he said.

The patients or their kin can reach out to the board through email or a helpline and the panel will discuss the patient's case, go through all reports and recommend a multi-disciplinary opinion within 48 hours of a patient’s report submission.

This board aims to consult and support 20,000 patients in its first year and with its digital-first approach, utilise tech advancement in the field of healthcare (telemonitoring, digital report reviews) to discuss over 30 patient cases in a day.

While the initial counselling is free of cost for the patients, once the responses are provided and severity of the case is detected, the board will help the patient connect with the right doctor.

Those doctor consultation fee may vary on case to case to basis.

The team

The board will include liver transplant specialist Dr KR Vasudevan, medical gastroenterologist Dr Manik Sharma, interventional radiologist Dr CPS Chauhan, medical oncologist Dr Atul Sharma and radiation oncologist Dr Abhishek Gulia.

Vasudevan says it’s unfortunate that despite having such a high level of expertise in liver health in India, so many people are suffering simply because they have not been able to reach the right doctors.

“Through the Board, we will be able to address this need and bring an improvement in the standards of liver health across the country.”

The prevalence of advanced liver diseases in India is more than 20 lakh annually and over 2 lakh patients die every year due to liver failure. These patients could have been saved by providing the right treatment at the right time, say the doctors.