Bhubaneswar: One in 12 individuals in Khurda district, including the state capital, is at risk of being diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, a population-based cancer registry (PBCR) has found out. This is the first time that such a report has been released by the state govt.
The exercise, which started on Oct 20, 2022, was conducted in association with Tata Memorial Centre (TMC), Mumbai, NISER Bhubaneswar, and other govt and private hospitals.
The study also found that the top-five leading cancer cases among men in the district are that of mouth, stomach, lung, tongue and prostate. Among women, the leading cases are breast, ovary, cervix uteri, stomach, and gallbladder cancer.
For the registry, members visited various diagnostic and health centres in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar to collect information on cancer incidence and deaths that had occurred in Khurda district.
Among men, 34% cancer cases involved that of head and neck or oral, 30% were of the digestive organs, with stomach and gallbladder cancers leading, followed by cancer of the lung and respiratory organs (11.3%).
In women, one out of three cancers was of the breast (33%), followed by female reproductive organs (22.1%) and digestive organs (20%).
According to the cancer registry data, tobacco-related cancer burden is 42.1% in men. It revealed that one of nearly three cases of cancer in men is linked to tobacco, compared to one out of nine cases in women.
“This is the first year of the cancer registry. We observed a 10-15% under-reporting. In the coming year, there will be improvement in cancer registration. Considering the high burden of oral, breast, and cervix uteri cancers in Khurda district, Tata Memorial Centre has launched an early detection programme for these cancers,” read the report.
Dr Atul Budukh, professor of epidemiology at Tata Memorial in Mumbai, and lead person of the cancer registry, said cancer registration is the foundation for its control. “TMC Mumbai will undertake epidemiological studies to know the aetiology of the disease in the population,” Budukh said.
Bedangdas Mohanty, senior professor at NISER Bhubaneswar, said the primary objective of the registry is to find out about the cancer burden and patterns of cancer in Khurda district. “The collected data will be utilised for planning cancer care services as well as cancer control programmes,” Mohanty said.
“It will be a base study, and we can compare this data year-on-year to know the prevalence of cancer. After 10 years, we will have solid data to correlate the cases and other aspects for policy making, prevention and treatment,” he added.
Dr Deepak Rautray, director of Acharya Harihar PG Institute of Cancer (AHPGIC), said, “From the first year’s report, more daycare centres and mobile vans should be planned for treating cancers that are already predominant.”