Striking as early as at 30, cancer kills Indians at an young age, says a multi-centre study, the first of its kind in the country. Though India maintains a national cancer registry, its data is based mainly on cases reported in major cities. To find out the “real scenario” in both urban and rural areas, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the US National Institutes of Health funded a “million deaths” study involving 130 physicians. Published in science journal Lancet on Wednesday, doctors from Bengaluru, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Delhi participated in the study.
As part of the research, the team studied the cause of death of 1.22 lakh people in different parts of India in early 2000. Of them, 7,131 people died of cancer, it reported. When the figure was compared with 2010 data, it was found that of 5.56 lakh deaths about 3.95 lakh, or 71 per cent, were victims of cancer.
The study pointed out that at the age bracket of 30-69 years, the three most common fatal cancers among men were oral (including lip and pharynx) at 22.9 per cent, stomach at 12.6 per cent, and lung (including trachea and larynx) at 11.4 per cent. Among women, 17.1 per cent fell victim to cervical, and 14.1 per cent and 10.2 per cent, respectively, died of stomach and breast cancers. Tobacco-related cancers represented 42 per cent of cancer deaths among men and 18.3 per cent among women, and there were twice as many deaths from oral cancer as lung cancer. Prevention of tobacco-related and cervical cancers and early detection of treatable cancers would reduce cancer deaths in India, particularly in rural areas, the researchers observed.