Clinical Expertise
Overview of Clinical Impact
Dr. (Prof.) Vijay Patil has provided care to over 100,000 cancer patients throughout his career. His clinical experience encompasses supervising immunotherapy administration in more than 1,000 patients, targeted therapies in over 10,000 patients, metronomic chemotherapy in more than 15,000 patients, and conventional chemotherapy in over 50,000 patients. He has pioneered numerous novel treatment regimens and clinical criteria that have significantly enhanced treatment efficacy while reducing costs for patients.
His innovations include the Patil criteria for borderline resectability, safety protocols for TPF (DCF) regimen administration in head and neck malignancies, multiple metronomic regimen developments, affordable immunotherapy protocols, combination chemo-targeted regimens for driver-mutated lung cancers, adjuvant strategies for penile malignancies, low-dose bevacizumab-CCNU combinations for gliomas, safety guidelines for PCV regimen in low-intermediate grade gliomas, and telemedicine follow-up systems in oncology care.
Research Contributions
- Head & Neck Cancer
- Thoracic Tumours
- Neuro-Oncology
- Uro-Oncology
- Gastrointestinal and Breast/Gynecological Cancers
- Low-dose immunotherapy: Developed a low-dose immunotherapy regimen that is an alternative standard of care, bringing treatment costs down by more than 90%.
- Double metronomic chemotherapy: Conceptualized an oral, low-cost regimen that was proven to be more effective and have fewer side effects than the previous intravenous standard treatment. This regimen has since entered practice guidelines.
- Triple metronomic chemotherapy: Developed an alternative regimen to immunotherapy for a subset of platinum-refractory head and neck cancer patients, which proved similarly effective at under 1% of the cost. The results were published in the Journal of clinical oncology.
- 3 weekly cisplatin: A phase 3, randomized study provided the first robust data on the optimal schedule for cisplatin usage with radiation.
- Nimotuzumab: A randomized phase 3 study on over 500 patients proved the efficacy of adding the novel drug Nimotuzumab to cisplatin.
- Docetaxel: A large phase 3 study proved that adding Docetaxel as a radiosensitizer to radiation improved outcomes in cisplatin-ineligible patients.
- Neoadjuvant chemotherapy for organ preservation: A randomized study proved that giving neoadjuvant chemotherapy could shrink jaw tumors, allowing for surgical removal without having to remove the jaw, thus preserving it for the patient.
- Neoadjuvant chemotherapy for borderline resectable cancers: Developed a strategy where neoadjuvant chemotherapy shrinks advanced tumors enough for them to be operated on, thus prolonging patients' lifespan.
- Other Head and Neck Cancer Treatments: Has experience treating Thyroid cancer, Salivary gland tumors, Skull base tumors, and NUT midline carcinomas with various systemic therapies. He also developed the neoadjuvant regimen of Cisplatin & etoposide in sinonasal malignancies.
- EGFR mutated tumors: A phase 3 study proved that an oral tablet of gefitinib was superior to the prevalent IV first-choice treatment. A subsequent study showed that adding IV chemotherapy to the oral tablet was even better, and this is now an accepted standard treatment guideline.
- Low-dose gemcitabine: Conceptualized and proved an alternative treatment equally effective to the standard treatment for a type of lung cancer, while being 25% cheaper.
- Erlotinib maintenance: Proved that an oral drug gave a similar quality of life as the currently used IV drug for maintenance in a lung cancer, providing a cost-effective alternative that reduced hospital visits.
- Immunotherapy in NSCLC: Helped establish the safety and efficacy of immunotherapy in lung, esophageal, and other cancers in India.
- Targeted therapies: Has one of the largest published experiences with numerous targeted therapies for various mutations in lung and other cancers.
- Video follow-ups: A randomized study showed that video follow-ups can effectively substitute for clinical follow-ups for patients with gliomas, which was a great boon during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Mebendazole in glioma: A phase 1 study was undertaken to repurpose the anti-parasitic medicine mebendazole for the treatment of glioblastoma.
- Bevacizumab: Helped establish the role of generic and low-dose bevacizumab through publications.
- Brain metastasis clinic: A multidisciplinary clinic started in April 2018 improved care by changing the treatment plan for nearly half of the patients with difficult brain metastasis cases.
- Studied and established the role of Paclitaxel-Platinum as adjuvant and palliative therapy in Penile cancers.
- Established the safety and efficacy of multiple therapies for Renal cell carcinoma and Prostate cancer.
- Has established and studied multiple regimens in various settings for GI tumors.
- Established internationally recognized protocols for treatment in Breast and Gynecological cancers while at Malabar Cancer center.