Mumbai, Sep 12 (IANS): A clinical trial conducted at the Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) has indicated that a simple, low-cost intervention can drastically increase the cure and survival rate among breast cancer patients, top officials said here on Monday.

The multi-centre clinical trials were conducted in women undergoing breast cancer surgery and it emerged that injection of a commonly used drug around the tumour on the operation table -- just before surgery -- could significantly and substantially increase the cure rate and survival on the long term.

Director of TMC, Rajendra Badwe, who carried out the trials, presented the results at the ongoing European Society of Medical Oncology Congress in Paris on Monday, and simultaneously TMC's professor Sudeep Gupta addressed the media on the findings in Mumbai.

The trial outcome shows that the injection needs no additional expertise, is affordable, barely Rs 100 per patient, but can result in saving at least 100,000 lives of breast cancer patients annually worldwide, said Badwe.

In comparison, expensive, targeted drugs costing over Rs 10 lakh per patient have shown far less benefits in early breast cancer patients, as per the study titled 'Effect of Peri-Tumoral Infiltration of Local Anaesthetic Prior to Surgery on Survival in Early Breast Cancer'.

Spearheaded by Badwe, the study was conducted on 1,600 women planning to undergo early breast cancer surgery at 11 cancer centres in India, including TMC, over 11 years from 2011-2022, said Gupta.