India’s first ever nationwide study was published in the Lancet in UK and released to the media in India at Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai on Wednesday. This is the country’s largest and only comprehensive study done over 10 years and counting 1,22,429 deaths that occurred in 11 lakh homes in 6,671 small areas.
The study has found that nearly six lakh Indians die of cancer every year, with 70 per cent of these deaths between the ages of 30-69 years. The study was helmed by TMH, the Centre for Global Health Research (Toronto).
As of now, there are only 24 cancer registry sites in India, of which 22 are in the metros and big cities and only two are in rural areas — Barshi in Maharashtra and near Chennai.
Chief epidemiologist and the key author of the study Dr Rajesh Dikshit said, “Some states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Punjab don’t have cancer registry sites. But despite this, the study records both incidence and mortality and includes statistics from rural areas, which we did not have earlier.”
The research analyses cancer death rates across India, and shows that cancer deaths accounted for six per cent of deaths across all ages, but among the 30-69 years age group this rose to eight per cent of the 25 lakh total male deaths and 12 per cent of the 16 lakh total female deaths.
In men aged between 30 and 69, the three most common fatal cancers were oral cancer (23 per cent), stomach cancer (13 per cent) and lung cancer (11 per cent). For women, the leading cancer-related deaths were due to cervical cancer (17 per cent), stomach cancer (14 per cent), and breast cancer (10 per cent).
Tobacco-related cancers represented respectively 42 per cent and 18·3 per cent of male and female cancer deaths between 30-69 years; deaths due to oral cancer was twice that of lung cancer, primarily due to the chewing of tobacco.