Dr. Subramanian Iyer

Dr. Subramanian Iyer is a senior surgical oncologist at Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, which is widely regarded as one of the finest cancer centres in Asia and treats more than 75,000 new cancer patients annually. With a career spanning nearly three decades, Dr. Iyer specialises in the surgical management of gastrointestinal and hepatobiliary cancers — an area requiring not only technical mastery but a deep understanding of oncology, as surgery is frequently combined with chemotherapy and radiation in multimodal treatment protocols.

He trained in surgery at the prestigious Grant Medical College before completing his post-doctoral work at Tata Memorial, and subsequently undertook a fellowship in hepato-pancreato-biliary (HPB) surgery at the University of Queensland in Australia. This fellowship equipped him with expertise in complex liver resections, Whipple procedures (pancreaticoduodenectomy), and bile duct reconstructions — procedures that require precision and carry significant technical challenge.

Dr. Iyer's work philosophy centres on the multidisciplinary tumour board model: every cancer patient under his care is reviewed by a team that includes medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, radiologists, and pathologists before a treatment plan is agreed. This ensures that no patient receives surgery when a non-surgical approach would achieve better outcomes, and vice versa.

He has also been closely involved in clinical research, contributing to multicentre trials on gastric cancer surgery and hepatocellular carcinoma resection. His publications appear in internationally indexed journals and have been cited in evidence-based oncology guidelines.