Telugu version of 'I am A Survivor' book released

Hyderabad: The Telugu version of the I am A Survivor, a compendium of experiences of 108 cancer survivors, was formally released here on Sunday.

Authored by oncologist and director of Apollo Cancer Hospital Dr Vijay Anand Reddy, the book was released by the hospital joint managing director Dr Sangita Reddy, former India left-arm spinner Venkatapathy Raju and Tollywood actress Rakul Preet Singh.

Speaking on the occasion, Sangita Reddy saidnationwide screening for non-communicable diseases was essential to prevent and detect ailments like cancer.

She said giving families the strength by sharing stories of survivors was one of the most wonderful things.

Sangita Reddy further said, ” Every eight seconds, a woman is dying of cervical cancer somewhere in the world. Every year in India, about 11.5 lakh patients are detected with cancer but the good thing is 8.9 lakh of them are no longer patients, and they are the cancer survivors.”

With that, a significant number of people is surviving and conquering cancer, she added.

Dr Vijay Anand Reddy said though he had the satisfaction of giving back to the community a strong message on cancer being after all conquerable thereby building resilience in the patients to fight the disease, there was always this thought lurking in him that the book is still not in the reach of a vast majority ofpatients.

That made me to embark on translating it into Telugu (from English), now many more cancer patients can battle the disease confidently, taking a leaf out of these inspiring stories,” he said.