The proportion of all cancers registered in India was higher in males than in females, according to the latest report from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
About 52.4 per cent of cancers were reported in males and 47.6 per cent reported in females, said the report “Clinicopathological Profile of Cancers in India: A Report of Hospital Based Cancer Registries, 2021“.
The report also noted that childhood cancers (0-14 years) comprised 7.9 per cent of all cancers. The tobacco use related cancers comprised 48.7 per cent among males and 16.5 per cent among females.
The report is based on seven-year data of cases from 96 Hospital Based Cancer Registries under the National Cancer Registry Programme (NCRP). A total of 13,32,207 cases were registered from these hospitals during 2012-19. Of these, 6,10,084 cases were included for analysis, based on the completeness and quality of data. The data pertains to all diagnosed and treated patients of confirmed malignancies reported to these centres across the country. The report presents a general overview of the proportion of cancer sites relative to all sites, they are associated with tobacco use, childhood cancers and detailed chapters in various organs sites, which include head and neck, gastrointestinal tract, lung, prostate, central nervous system, thyroid, kidney, bladder, childhood and gynaecological cancers including breast.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) started the National Cancer Registry Programme (NCRP) in 1981, through a network of Population and Hospital Based Cancer Registries (PBCRs and HBCRs)
KEY FINDINGS
- Cancers of the head and neck region accounted for nearly one third (31.2%) of the teh disease among males. Gynaecologic cancers, including breast cancers (51%), accounted for over half of all the diseases in females.
- The relative proportion of site-specific cancers was higher in males than females except for thyroid cancers (2.5 % in females versus 1% in males) and gall bladder cancer (3.7% in females versus 2.2 % in males)
- The highest proportion of cancer from all sites were reported in the age group 45 to 64 years, except for prostate cancer, which was higher in those over 65.
- Over 90% of the cancers in different organ sites got diagnosed by microscopic examination.
- Among all the cancers, the highest proportion of distant metastasis at presentation was seen in patients with lung cancer (49.2% males and 55.5% females), followed by gall bladder cancer (40.9% males and 45.7% females) and prostate cancer (42.9%).
- Over one-third of patients with cancers of the tongue, larynx, thyroid, corpus uteri, kidney (including children), bladder and retinoblastoma had localized disease at the time of presentation.
- Chemotherapy was the most typical treatment modality regardless of the clinical extent of disease at presentation, including that of the liver, gall bladder, stomach, lung and childhood cancers.
- Regardless of the organ site and clinical extent, most patients, were initiated on cancer-directed treatment within 8 to 30 days of diagnosis.
- Over half of the patients with cancer of the brain and nervous system and about one-third of the patients of lung, prostate, bladder and thyroid cancer with localized disease, diagnosed at the reporting institution were initiated on cancers directed treatment on the same day