Hyderabad: A consortium led by Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, in collaboration with IIIT Hyderabad’s Language Technologies Research Centre (LTRC) is developing ‘BandhuCare’, a multilingual artificial intelligence (AI) companion for cancer patients. The platform answers patients’ queries in their preferred language, tracks symptoms through natural conversations, and helps doctors monitor patients’ conditions between hospital visits. BandhuCare has reached technology readiness level 5 and is set to enter clinical pilot studies with head and neck cancer patients.
Designed to bridge communication gaps between patients and clinicians, BandhuCare answers routine post-treatment questions using only clinician-verified medical information rather than drawing from the internet. It uses Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) with an additional AI safety layer that verifies every response against an approved medical knowledge base before it reaches the patient, reducing the risk of AI hallucinations.
The platform replaces conventional questionnaires with natural conversations. Patients can describe symptoms through text or voice, maintain daily journals and record concerns between hospital visits. The AI converts these conversations into clinical summaries and standard Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs), giving clinicians a snapshot of a patient’s condition before consultations.
According to Dr Narender Kumar Thota, consultant hemato-oncologist and stem cell/bone marrow transplant specialist at KIMS Hospitals, Secunderabad, communication gaps between consultations are common, as patients may forget symptoms because of anxiety or recall them only after returning home. “Doctors are trained to extract as much relevant history as possible, and in most cases they do. But patients can forget details, and even doctors can occasionally miss something. A structured AI questionnaire can improve the quality of information collected and help explore symptoms in greater depth,” he said.
He noted that structured history-taking is not new and has long been practised through standard templates in many healthcare systems. AI, however, can make the process more dynamic by tailoring follow-up questions based on previous responses instead of relying on a fixed checklist, thereby saving time while improving documentation.
At the same time, Dr Thota cautioned that such platforms should be viewed only as clinical support tools and not replacements for medical judgement. “Questionnaires help narrow down possibilities, but every diagnosis still has to be confirmed through appropriate investigations. Whatever information AI gathers must always be correlated clinically before treatment decisions are made,” he said.
BandhuCare currently supports eight Indian languages and enables interactions through both text and speech, allowing patients to communicate in the language they are most comfortable with. It also includes an AI-powered consent agent that explains medical consent forms in simple language and checks patient understanding before consent is obtained.
Dr Thota said multilingual support could be particularly valuable at large referral centres such as CMC Vellore, which receive patients from across the country. “Language barriers are a real challenge in cancer care. A multilingual platform can help patients explain symptoms more accurately and help doctors understand them better,” he said.
He added that the technology could be especially useful in high-volume govt hospitals, where doctors often have limited consultation time. Beyond improving patient care, structured digital records generated by such platforms could also support research, policymaking and disease-control strategies by creating large, standardised datasets.
The consortium developing BandhuCare includes CMC Vellore, IIIT Hyderabad, startup Revan AI, AIIMS Guwahati and patient advocacy platform PatientsEngage. The project recently received the IndiaAI-National Cancer Grid CATCH Grant for Cancer 2026 and, following clinical pilots, is expected to be expanded to other cancers and chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and dialysis care.
