High cancer rates raise alarm in NE

New Delhi: Certain pockets of the North-Eastern region have the highest cancer incidence rate compared to that of the rest of the country and cancer cases have been spiraling in the region. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has sounded the alarm bells after conducting India's first population-based cancer survey in four north-eastern states recently.

Earlier, a study done by the National Cancer Registry Programme had registered the highest age-adjusted rate of cancer of tonsil in Nagaland and Manipur. The same study had reported the highest rate of esophagus cancer among men in Mizoram and Assam and women in Meghalaya and a very high rate of stomach cancer in Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim.

The ICMR study has, on the other hand, found 123 cancer cases per 100,000 males and 103 cases per 100,000 females in the region as against a national prevalence rate of around 80 cases per 100,000. The study said the people of Northeast are more prone to mouth, stomach, gall bladder and lung cancer.

It says lung cancer is more prevalent in males in Imphal while females in Manipur and Mizoram were more prone to lung cancer. More and more males in Mizoram and Sikkim are being diagnosed with stomach cancer. In fact, in both male and female, Aizawl registered the highest number of stomach cancer incidence.

Smoking has been found to be the main reason behind the unreasonably higher incidence of lung cancer cases among NE women, especially in Manipur and Mizoram. According to Dr A Nandkumar of the National Cancer Registry Programme, tobacco was responsible for 50 per cent of cancer incidences in men and 25 per cent of cases in women in the region.

NCRP had recently sounded the alarm bells over the very high rate of nasopharynx cancer in Nagaland. "China and Hong Kong topped the list of cancer of nasopharynx in the world, but some Nagaland districts bordering Myanmar surpassed that record also," Nandkumar has said.

When it comes to age-adjusted rates of other common types -- like cancer of uterine cervix and breast (for female) -- the North Eastern states were not far behind. Mizoram ranked third in the country in these types.