Cancer has resulted in about six lakh deaths in India in 2010. And over 70 percent of these deaths occurred in the productive age between 30 and 69 years, said a nationally representative survey – “Cancer mortality in India”.

The three most common fatal cancers in men were oral, stomach and lung cancer, the survey said, and cervical breast and stomach in women, said Dr Rajesh Dikshit, Epidemiologist with the Tata Memorial Hospital, and one of the authors in the study.

Unlike earlier studies that picked up cancer incidence in the country, this is the first study to plot the actual deaths and the data can be used as a yardstick for treatment, said Dr R.A.Badwe, Director, Tata Memorial Centre.

Explaining the significance of the study, he said, it gave a good handle to understand the cancers and mortality that would further help prevention as unique treatments could be offered for features seen in different regions or populations.

The survey is part of the Million Death Study (MDS), undertaken to document the causes of child and adult deaths in the country and their key risk factors between 1998 and 2014.

The MDS works within the Sample Registration System, a demographic survey funded and implemented by the Registrar General of India (RGI). The MDS is led by Canada’s Centre for Global Health, St. Michael’s Hospital and the University of Toronto, Canada, besides other partners including Tata Memorial Hospital, the RGI, St John’s Institute (Bangalore), the Indian Council of Medical Research and the Clinical Trials Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit At Oxford University.

Insights

The cancer deaths showed similar pattern of occurrence in rural and urban areas. And tobacco- related cancers accounted for over 40 percent of the male and nearly 20 percent of the female cancers, the study observed.

Variations in cancer death rates across States were partly tobacco-consumption related, for instance the North-Eastern States in the country showed four times greater mortality than its neighbouring Bihar or Orissa, said Dr Dikshit, an author with the study that was published in Lancet.

Cancer death rates were two-fold higher in the least-educated , as compared to most educated adults. And cervical cancer deaths were far less in Muslim women than Hindu women, the study observed.

Co-author Professor Prabhat Jha, with the CGHR, pointed out that the 130 trained physicians assigned causes to 122429 deaths that occurred in 1.1 million homes in 6671 small areas that were randomly selected to be representative of the country. Also participating in the study, Dr Prakash Gupta of the Healis Seskaria Insittute added that the study findings could be translated to the rest of the country as selection of the sample was scientific.

>jyothi@thehindu.co.in

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