HealthCare Global Enterprises Ltd. (HCG) marked World Psycho-oncology Day with a high-level stakeholders’ roundtable and skill-building workshop at its KR Road cancer hospital in Bengaluru.

The event placed spotlight on psychological distress as the “6th vital sign” in oncology care.

The initiative aligns with global psycho-oncology standards that advocate routine distress screening as a core quality benchmark in cancer treatment. 

The day-long programme brought together oncologists, psycho-oncologists, psychiatrists, medical social workers, patient advocates, and hospital leaders to deliberate on how emotional and psychosocial care can be integrated into routine oncology workflows. The central message was clear: untreated distress can directly affect treatment adherence, clinical decision-making, recovery, and overall quality of life for cancer patients and caregivers. 

Dr B. S. Ajaikumar, Founder and Chairman of HCG, emphasized that emotional well-being is inseparable from clinical outcomes, noting that structured screening and timely support are now essential for truly patient-centric cancer care. Echoing this, CEO Dr. Manish Mattoo announced the release of an institutional policy quality standard for cancer psychosocial care, mandating routine distress screening for patients and their families.

A major operational highlight was the hands-on training workshop led by Dr. Brindha Sitaram, Group Director – Psycho-oncology Services, where participants were trained on the NCCN Distress Thermometer (2025 version), distress interpretation frameworks, referral pathways, role-play simulations, and psychosocial support across the cancer continuum—including end-of-life care, grief management, paediatric oncology, and young adult support. The NCCN Distress Thermometer remains one of the most widely accepted global tools for measuring emotional burden in oncology. 

The roundtable also underlined the need for closer collaboration between oncology, psycho-oncology, and integrative oncology teams, alongside structured institutional protocols that ensure distress screening becomes a standardized step in everyday clinical practice rather than an optional add-on.

For HCG, the event reinforces its broader strategic focus on human-centric oncology, where clinical excellence is combined with mental health support, empathy, and survivorship care. As cancer care increasingly shifts toward outcomes beyond survival alone, the recognition of distress as the sixth vital sign could become a defining quality metric for future-ready oncology systems in India.