The directors of Regional Cancer Centres have written letters to Prime Minister and Union Health Minister, urging nationwide implementation of the gutka ban. Confronted with a near doubling of mouth cancer rates since the mid-1980s, policy-makers and tobacco-control activists have cause to worry whether the ban on gutka is too-little-too-late.
The cancer registry data published by Gujarat Cancer Research Centre over the 20-year period spanning 1985 and 2006, when analysed by Mumbai’s Healis-Sekhsaria Institute of Public Health, reveals a near doubling of oral cancer rates across different age groups.
The yet to be published analysis (which is an update of a study published in Journal of Medical Association in 1999 titled Mouth Cancer in India — A New Epidemic?) included cancer of the cheeks, lower and upper jaw, hard and soft palate and gums in males only.
Overall, this research says that the rate of cancer has doubled in the two decades between 1985 and 2006. Dr Prof Santanu Chaudhuri, an eminent oncologist and director of RST Regional Cancer Hospital, Nagpur, confirms this trend.
“A study carried out in RST Regional Cancer Hospital, which was published in the Journal of the Academy of Medical Sciences, indicates that oral cavity cancer is becoming very common in young population of 25-40 years of age. Ten years back, it was common in the 40-60 age bracket,” says Dr Chaudhuri citing the study.