CION Ameerpet
Pancreatic Cancer · Choosing Your Team · Reviewed by CION Oncologists
Which doctor treats pancreatic cancer — and who leads at each stage
There is no single pancreatic cancer specialist. There is a small team, and the doctor who leads changes with what your scans show. This page sets out who does what, who to see first, and which parts of the care CION delivers itself.
- See a medical oncologist first — they read the scans and pathology together and set the order of everything else.
- The operability call is a team decision — a tumour board, not one doctor reading one report.
- The lead specialty changes — surgeon, medical oncologist or radiation oncologist, depending on the situation.
- Surgery and endoscopy are coordinated — performed by partner HPB and endoscopy specialists, and may be billed there.
17+
Cancer Specialists
on Panel
on Panel
35+
Centres Across
Telangana & AP
Telangana & AP
15,000+
Patients
Treated
Treated
4.8★
Google Rating
(800+ reviews)
(800+ reviews)
Start here
The Short Answer, and Why It Is More Than One Doctor
People searching for which doctor treats pancreatic cancer are usually holding a scan report and trying to work out who to ring first. The honest answer is that no single specialty owns this disease. A pancreatic cancer specialist is not one job title — it is a small team, and the person who leads changes depending on what your scans show.
In practice, the doctor most people should see first is a medical oncologist. That is the specialist who reads the scans and the pathology together, works out which category you are in, and decides what has to happen in what order. Even when an operation is the eventual goal, the medical oncologist is usually the one who holds the plan from start to finish, because the surgery is one event inside a pathway that runs for a year or more.
The question people really mean when they ask oncologist or surgeon for pancreatic cancer is: who decides whether I can be operated on? That decision is not made by the surgeon alone and not by the oncologist alone. It is made by a group looking at the same pancreatic-protocol CT together — a tumour board. If you take one thing from this page, take that: the sequence of doctors matters more than the name of any one of them.
The rest of this page sets out who is on that team, what each of them actually does, who leads in each situation, and which parts of pancreatic care CION delivers itself versus arranges with partner centres.
Did you know? The NCCN guidelines for pancreatic adenocarcinoma do not simply recommend a good surgeon or a good oncologist. They recommend that a patient with suspected or confirmed pancreatic cancer be evaluated by a multidisciplinary team — medical oncology, hepatobiliary or surgical oncology, radiation oncology, diagnostic radiology, pathology and gastroenterology together — at a centre that handles pancreatic cases regularly, and that the judgement on whether a tumour can be removed be reached by consensus on a dedicated pancreatic-protocol CT rather than by any one doctor working alone. That guidance exists because the operability call is the single most consequential decision in this disease, and it is the decision most often got wrong when only one specialty looks at the scan.
Who is actually involved
The Specialists on a Pancreatic Cancer Team
You will not meet all of these people, and you do not need to. This is what each of them contributes, so the names on your discharge summary make sense.
Usually your lead doctor
Medical oncologist
Reads scans and pathology together, sets the order of treatment, and delivers chemotherapy before surgery, after surgery or for advanced disease. This is the doctor who holds the plan. In-house at CION.
Does the operation
Hepatobiliary (HPB) or GI surgeon
A surgeon who operates on the pancreas, bile duct and liver specifically. Performs the Whipple procedure and other pancreatic resections. Coordinated with partner surgeons at their hospital, and may be billed there.
Plans and delivers radiation
Radiation oncologist
Involved where chemoradiation or stereotactic body radiotherapy forms part of the plan, most often for locally advanced disease or to tighten margins around a borderline tumour. In-house at CION.
Gets the tissue, clears the duct
Interventional gastroenterologist
Performs endoscopic ultrasound with a fine-needle sample to confirm the diagnosis, and ERCP with a stent to relieve a blocked bile duct. Coordinated with specialist endoscopy partners, and may be billed there.
Answers the operability question
Diagnostic radiologist
Reports the pancreatic-protocol CT and MRI/MRCP, describing exactly how the tumour sits against the arteries and veins behind the pancreas. That description drives the whole plan. Ordered and reported in-house at CION.
Names the disease
Pathologist
Examines the biopsy or the resected specimen and states what the tumour actually is. Adenocarcinoma and a neuroendocrine tumour look similar on a scan and are treated on completely different tracks.
Keeps you strong enough
Dietitian and enzyme support
Weight loss and poor absorption are part of this disease, not a side issue. Pancreatic enzyme replacement and a proper eating plan often decide whether you stay fit enough for treatment. In-house at CION.
Runs alongside, not at the end
Pain, palliative and psycho-oncology
Pain relief, symptom control and psychological support belong from day one, not only late on. Genetic counselling also sits here, because a family history changes what is offered to you and to your relatives. In-house at CION.
Oncologist or surgeon?
Who Leads, Depending on What Your Scan Shows
The lead specialty is not fixed. It follows the situation, and it can change once treatment starts working.
| Your situation | Who leads | Where it happens |
|---|---|---|
| A scan has shown something, but there is no diagnosis yet | Medical oncologist, working with the radiologist | Assessment, imaging and CA 19-9 in-house at CION; the endoscopic ultrasound biopsy coordinated with endoscopy partners. |
| Jaundice from a blocked bile duct, before anything else can start | Interventional gastroenterologist | ERCP and stenting coordinated with endoscopy partners and may be billed there; oncology continues in-house once you are decompressed. |
| The tumour looks removable on a pancreatic-protocol CT | HPB surgeon, with the tumour board agreeing the timing | Surgery coordinated with partner HPB surgeons at their hospital; chemotherapy before and after it in-house at CION. |
| Borderline — the tumour touches a major vessel | Medical oncologist first, surgeon second | Systemic treatment in-house at CION to try to move the tumour off the vessel, then a fresh scan and a fresh surgical opinion. |
| Locally advanced — an operation is not on the table now | Medical oncologist with the radiation oncologist | Chemotherapy, chemoradiation and SBRT delivered in-house at CION. |
| The disease has spread to other organs | Medical oncologist, with supportive care alongside | Systemic therapy, nutrition, enzyme support and pain care all in-house at CION. |
| A pancreatic neuroendocrine tumour, not adenocarcinoma | Medical oncologist with a neuroendocrine focus | Systemic therapy in-house at CION; DOTATATE PET and peptide receptor radionuclide therapy coordinated with nuclear medicine partners. |
| Pain that medication alone is not controlling | Pain and palliative care team | Pain management in-house at CION; a coeliac plexus block coordinated with specialist partners and may be billed there. |
If a single doctor has already given you a firm answer about surgery without a tumour board looking at your scans, that is the moment to pause. When a pancreatic cancer second opinion is worth it explains what a review actually changes, and what makes a good pancreatic cancer centre covers what to look for in the place, not just the person.
12+ Centres in Hyderabad · Pick yours
CION cancer care is closer than you think.
We're never more than 30 minutes away. Same panel of specialists at every centre. Same tumour board reviews. Same NCCN protocols. Pick the closest one and call directly — or let us pick for you.
CION Ameerpet
CION Kukatpally
CION L.B. Nagar
CION Tolichowki
CION Masab Tank
CION Banjara Hills
CION Kompally
CION Balanagar
CION Siddipet
CION Sangareddy
Not sure which centre fits best? Tell us where you are — we'll suggest the closest one with the right specialists.
Help me pick the right centre
Beyond Hyderabad
35+ centres across Telangana & Andhra Pradesh
Travelling for treatment? We may have a centre right where you are.
Telangana
Andhra Pradesh
Don't see your city? Call 18002028726 — we'll find your nearest CION partner centre.
Meet the Specialists
17+ senior cancer specialists. One panel for your case.
Trained at AIIMS, Tata Memorial, and leading international centres. Combined 150+ years of experience. Every complex case is reviewed by 3+ of them — together.
Medical Oncologist
Medical Oncologist
Dr. C. Raghavendra Reddy
MBBS(Gold Medal), DNB(General Medicine), DM(Medical Oncology)(Gold Medal)
Medical Oncologist
Dr. Bharati Devi Gorantla
MBBS, MD(General Medicine), DM(Medical Oncology)(Adyar,Chennai), ECMO, MRCP SCE(UK)
Medical Oncologist
Dr. Owais Mohammed
MBBS, MD (General Medicine), DrNB (Medical Oncology), ECMO, MRCP SCE (Medical Oncology) (UK)
Medical Oncologist
Medical Oncologist
Surgical Oncologist
Dr. Muralidhar Muddusetty
MBBS (AIIMS), MS (Surgery) (AIIMS), DNB (Surgical Oncology), MRCS (Edinburgh)
Surgical Oncologist
Surgical Oncologist
Surgical Oncologist
Dr. Vinay Mamidala
MBBS, MS(General Surgery), M.Ch(Surgical Oncology), FMAS, FARIS(Ongoing)
Surgical Oncologist
Radiation Oncologist
Radiation Oncologist
Radiation Oncologist
Hematologist
Interventional Radiologist
Dr. Mohammed Imran
Surgical Oncologist
Dr. Vajja Sandeep Kumar
MBBS, MS (General Surgery), DrNB (Surgical Oncology), FALS Oncology
Surgical Oncologist
Want a specific doctor for your case? Mention them when booking.
Book Free ConsultationBook an appointment with our specialist
Share your name and number — we'll call you back within 30 minutes to schedule your consultation.
The Right Sequence of Doctors Matters More Than Any One Name
A 45-minute consultation is enough to tell you who should be leading your care, and why.
Plainly stated
Which of These Doctors You Will Actually See at CION
Your first appointment is a free 45-minute consultation with a medical oncologist. It is a genuine review of your reports, not a booking slot. Being clear about who does what saves a difficult conversation later, so here is the split without softening it.
Delivered in-house at CION, across 35+ centres in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh: the medical oncologist who leads your plan and delivers chemotherapy before surgery, after surgery and for advanced disease, including PARP-inhibitor-class maintenance where an inherited BRCA change is found, immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy where the tumour is mismatch-repair deficient, and somatostatin-analogue-class treatment for neuroendocrine tumours. Also the radiation oncologist for chemoradiation and SBRT; the tumour board itself; ordering and reporting of pancreatic-protocol CT, MRI/MRCP, CA 19-9 and bloods; genetic counselling; the dietitian and pancreatic enzyme support; pain relief, psycho-oncology and supportive care; and survivorship follow-up afterwards.
Coordinated with specialist hepatobiliary, gastroenterology, endoscopy and nuclear medicine partner centres, and may be billed there: every pancreatic operation, including the Whipple procedure, distal and total pancreatectomy and palliative bypass; staging laparoscopy; endoscopic ultrasound with biopsy; ERCP and biliary or duodenal stenting; coeliac plexus block; PET-CT and DOTATATE PET; and peptide receptor radionuclide therapy. We arrange these, we take part in the decisions, and we tell you in advance which hospital each one happens at and who will invoice you for it. We do not describe a partner theatre or a partner endoscopy list as our own, because it is not.
Our panel of 17+ cancer specialists and the doctors you would meet on this pathway are listed on our pancreatic cancer doctors in Hyderabad page, if you would rather look at names and credentials before you book anything.
Your first appointment
What the First 45-Minute Consultation Involves
-
A medical oncologist reads your scans with you
Bring the discs, not only the printed reports. What matters is how the tumour sits against the arteries and veins behind the pancreas, and that is visible on the images rather than in the summary line.
In-house at CION -
What is missing is identified
Often a pancreatic-protocol CT has not been done, or there is no tissue diagnosis yet. You are told what is needed before any plan can be honest, and why.
Imaging and bloods in-house; biopsy coordinated -
Your case goes to a tumour board, not to one opinion
Medical oncology, radiation oncology and the partner HPB surgeon look at the same images together. The operability answer comes out of that discussion, not out of one consulting room.
Tumour board at CION -
You are told who leads, and for how long
Which doctor is in charge of this phase, who takes over at the next one, and what would have to change for that to change. It is written down rather than left for you to infer.
In-house at CION -
Costs and cover are separated out
A written estimate with an explicit split between what CION bills and what a partner hospital bills, plus whether Aarogyasri, NTR Vaidya Seva or your own insurance applies to each part.
In-house at CION
Before you commit
How to Tell You Are With the Right Doctor
None of these questions is rude. Any pancreatic specialist worth seeing will answer all of them without hesitating.
- Ask whether your case has been to a tumour board. If the answer is vague, or the operability decision came from one doctor looking at one report, that is worth pushing on.
- Ask who does the operation, and where. A pancreatic resection should be done by a surgeon who operates on pancreases regularly, at a hospital set up for it. Ask for the name of the hospital, not only the surgeon.
- Ask which specialty is leading right now. You should be able to say, in one sentence, who is in charge of this phase of your treatment and who to contact between appointments.
- Ask whether the pathology is confirmed. Adenocarcinoma and a neuroendocrine tumour are treated on entirely different tracks, and the difference is decided by a pathologist, not by a scan.
- Ask who bills you for what. Where surgery, endoscopy or scanning happens at a partner centre, that part of the cost sits with them. You should be told this before you agree to anything, not afterwards.
- Ask what happens if the plan is not working. A specialist should already have named the point at which your scans get reviewed again and the plan can change.
What we will not do: claim an operating theatre or an endoscopy list we do not run, or push you into treatment before the diagnosis is properly settled. If you want the wider picture first, our complete guide to pancreatic cancer covers symptoms, staging, diagnosis and treatment in one place. When you are ready, book a free consultation or call 1800 202 8726.
Take the next step
Care Led by a Team, Not a Single Doctor
Every pancreatic case is reviewed by a tumour board before a plan is agreed. We walk this journey with you.
Real Stories. Real Voices.
15,000+ patients chose CION. Hear from them directly.
These aren't paid endorsements or written reviews. These are video testimonials from real patients and families — recorded on their own phones, in their own words. Pick any one. Watch it. Then decide.
4.8★800+ Google reviews
50+video testimonials
15,000+patients treated
Read all 800+ reviews on Google
Start Your Story. Book Free Consultation.
Common questions
Which doctor treats pancreatic cancer - your questions answered
Which doctor should I see first if a scan shows something in my pancreas?
See a medical oncologist first. That is the specialist who reads the imaging and the pathology together, works out what is still missing, and decides the order of everything that follows. Many people go straight to a surgeon, which is understandable, but it puts the operability question before the diagnosis and staging that answer it. A medical oncologist can order a pancreatic-protocol CT, arrange the tissue diagnosis, baseline CA 19-9 and bloods, and then take your case to a tumour board where a hepatobiliary surgeon and a radiation oncologist look at the same images. If an operation is the right answer, you will get there faster this way, not slower, because nobody has to redo the groundwork.
Is pancreatic cancer treated by an oncologist or a surgeon?
By both, in a sequence, and the lead changes as the situation changes. A medical oncologist usually holds the overall plan because treatment runs for a year or more, while the operation itself is one event within it. A hepatobiliary surgeon leads at the point where a tumour can be removed. If the tumour is borderline, touching a major vessel, systemic treatment normally comes first to try to move it away from that vessel, so the oncologist leads and the surgeon reassesses on a fresh scan. If the disease has already spread, the medical oncologist leads throughout and surgery is generally not part of the plan. Asking whether it is an oncologist or a surgeon is really asking which phase you are in.
What is a hepatobiliary surgeon, and does it matter if my surgeon is a general surgeon?
A hepatobiliary or HPB surgeon is a surgeon who has trained specifically in operations on the pancreas, bile ducts and liver. It matters. Pancreatic resections such as the Whipple procedure involve rebuilding the connections between the pancreas, bile duct and bowel, and they behave very differently from general abdominal surgery. NCCN guidance recommends that this surgery be done at centres that handle pancreatic cases regularly, and that the decision to operate be made by a multidisciplinary team. At CION, pancreatic surgery is coordinated with specialist HPB and GI partner surgeons and performed at their hospital, which may bill you for that part of your care. We arrange it and stay involved, but we do not describe it as our own operating list.
What does a tumour board actually do, and why does it matter so much here?
A tumour board is a scheduled meeting where medical oncology, radiation oncology, surgery, radiology and pathology look at your images and reports together and agree a plan. It matters more in pancreatic cancer than in almost any other cancer because the central question, whether the tumour can be removed completely, depends on a millimetre-level reading of how it sits against the arteries and veins behind the pancreas. Two specialists reading that alone can reasonably disagree. A board forces the disagreement into the open before you are committed to anything. It also means the surgeon who might operate has already seen your scans before a date is discussed, rather than after.
Do I need a second opinion before I start treatment?
It is reasonable, and in pancreatic cancer it is often genuinely useful, particularly before a major operation or when you have been told surgery is not possible. The most valuable second opinion is not a different personality; it is a different team looking at the original images rather than at somebody else's report. Bring the scan discs and the pathology slides or blocks, not just the printed summaries. A short delay to get a properly considered answer is almost always safer than starting the wrong pathway quickly. The exception is painless jaundice with a blocked bile duct, where relieving the blockage should not wait while opinions are gathered.
Who looks after the everyday problems, like weight loss, digestion and pain?
A dietitian and the supportive care team, and they should be involved early rather than at the end. Weight loss and poor absorption are part of pancreatic disease itself, not merely a side effect of treatment, and pancreatic enzyme replacement often makes a bigger practical difference to how you feel than anything else in a given month. Pain is managed by the pain and palliative team alongside active treatment, not instead of it. Psycho-oncology support and genetic counselling sit in the same group, the latter because a family history can change what is offered both to you and to your relatives. All of this is delivered in-house at CION; a coeliac plexus block, where pain is not controlled by medication alone, is coordinated with specialist partners.
Which doctors will I meet at CION, and what happens at the first visit?
Your first visit is a free 45-minute consultation with a medical oncologist. Bring your scan discs, any pathology report and your medicines list. The doctor reads the images with you, says plainly what is known and what is still missing, and explains which specialist leads this phase of your care and who takes over next. Your case then goes to a tumour board where radiation oncology and the partner hepatobiliary surgeon review the same images. You leave with the sequence written down and a cost estimate that separates what CION bills from what a partner hospital bills. Chemotherapy, radiation, chemoradiation and SBRT, imaging and marker reporting, genetic counselling, nutrition, enzyme support, pain care and psycho-oncology are delivered by CION across 35+ centres. Surgery, endoscopic ultrasound, ERCP and stenting, staging laparoscopy, coeliac plexus block, PET-CT and DOTATATE PET and PRRT are coordinated with partner centres and may be billed there.
Medical disclaimer: This page explains which specialists treat pancreatic cancer and how the lead role moves between them, and is reviewed by a CION medical oncologist with reference to NCCN guidance on pancreatic adenocarcinoma. It is general information and not a substitute for an individual opinion; which specialist should lead your own care depends on your imaging, pathology and general health, and must be decided with your treating team. Medical oncology and chemotherapy, radiation, chemoradiation and SBRT, tumour-board review, ordering and reporting of pancreatic-protocol CT, MRI/MRCP, CA 19-9 and bloods, genetic counselling, nutrition and pancreatic enzyme (PERT) support, pain relief, psycho-oncology and survivorship follow-up are delivered by CION. All pancreatic surgery, staging laparoscopy, endoscopic ultrasound and biopsy, ERCP and biliary or duodenal stenting, coeliac plexus block, PET-CT and DOTATATE PET, and peptide receptor radionuclide therapy are coordinated with specialist hepatobiliary, gastroenterology, endoscopy and nuclear medicine partner centres and may be billed there.