Recently released numbers show that Aizawl (Mizoram) has the highest rates of cancer in men, while Papumpare (Arunachal Pradesh) appears to have the highest number of women cancer sufferers. Cancer is among the leading cause of death and is important to know about because at least some of its causes can be controlled.
There are 2.5 million cancer patients in India
There are about 2.5 million Indians living with cancer in India with about 7 lakh new cases of cancer being registered each year.
Oral and lung cancers are the worst killers among men
Because of the high incidence of tobacco-use by chewing, in paan and smoking, as well as using snuff, lung cancer and cancers of the oral cavity are the biggest killers among Indian men.
Its breast cancer and cervical cancer among women
The most common cancers among Indian women are cancers of the cervix and the breast. About 50% of cancer deaths are due to these types of cancers.
Other most common cancers
After lung and oral cancers, cancers of the stomach, colorectal and pharynx (part of the throat) are most common in Indian men. After breast and cervical cancer, Indian women most common have colorectal cancer, ovarian cancer and cancer of the lip or oral cavity.
Some scary cancer statistics
One woman dies every eight minutes because of cervical cancer in India. Tobacco use related cancer causes as many as 2,500 people to die each day in India. It is estimated that about estimated 600 000–700 000 people died in India as a result of cancer in 2012.
Avoidable causes of cancer
Tobacco use (avoidable) and infections (often easily treatable) are the most common causes of cancer. Lack of access to medical facilities and poverty are very often the cause of death from cancer because detection is too late for timely treatment. Early detection is the key to cancer treatment and lack of early stage detection is the most common reason for poor outcomes.
Cancer has social and economic consequences
In India it has been found that cancer could have very profound social as well as economic impacts where some people could experience shunning or social inequality and many suffer impoverishment because of the expenditure of valuable family resources upon treatment.
Cancer reporting is very low in India
Only about 1 million new cases of cancer are reported from a population of 1.2 billion Indians each year. This is about one quarter of what is reported in Europe. This doesn’t mean that the incidence of cancer is one fourth; just that detection levels are abysmally low in our country.
