Rahul Bhargava: Ensure Equal Recognition of Clinical Haematologists in Blood Cancer Clinical Trials
Rahul Bhargava, Director and Head of Hematology, Hematoncology and Stem Cell Transplant at Fortis Health Care, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“For almost four decades, haematologists – doctors specially trained in diseases of blood and blood cancers – have led the treatment of AML, acute leukemias, lymphomas, myeloma, aplastic anaemia, and related disorders across India and the world.
India itself created DM Clinical Haematology as a superspeciality precisely to focus on blood cancers, bone marrow failure syndromes, coagulation disorders, and stem cell transplantation. Today, thousands of patients survive because of this focused expertise.
It is therefore deeply concerning that, by administrative wording and committee interpretation, certain clinical trials in diseases like lymphoma and leukemia are being restricted only to ‘Medical Oncologists’ as Principal Investigators, despite these diseases historically and scientifically being managed extensively by haematologists.
This is not a battle between specialties.
This is about protecting scientific fairness, patient access, and India’s long-standing academic structure in hemato-oncology.
Haematologists:
- diagnose and treat acute leukemias daily,
- perform bone marrow transplants,
- manage CAR-T therapy,
- interpret advanced molecular hematopathology,
- and run dedicated blood cancer programs.
Excluding them from leading clinical trials in the very diseases they have treated for decades risks weakening academic growth, reducing trial accessibility, and undermining the
spirit in which hematology was built in India.
We respectfully urge the Narendra Modi, CDSCO FDA India MoHFW, Rajeev Raghuvanshi, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW) ,National Health Mission, Department of Public Health and Family Welfare, Govt of Madhya Pradesh, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jagat Prakash, Nadda DBT BIRAC and all concerned scientific committees to review this anomaly and ensure equal recognition of Clinical Haematology alongside Medical Oncology for blood cancer clinical trials.
Patient care must remain above specialty politics.
Science must remain inclusive, evidence-based, and fair.”
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