VELLORE: The Christian Medical College is planning to extend the Early Cancer Screening project that was piloted in three villages in and around Vellore. Dr Raju Titus Chacko, Professor of the Department of Medical Oncology at CMC said that the pilot project launched last year had focused on cancer related to rural women. Based on the feedback, a multi-disciplinary screening project covering the entire district will be undertaken soon, he said.Speaking to The New Indian Express on the sidelines of World Cancer Day activities, Chacko said that CMC was already a part of an All India Epidemiological study on colon cancer among vegetarians. While studies conducted overseas had ample information on colon cancer adequate information was not available on this in India. The study, which began about six months ago, will cover about 6,000 patients across the country.World Cancer Day, which is celebrated this year with the theme ‘Cancer is Preventable’, is an occasion to raise awareness and to bring the growing cancer crisis to attention of public, government leaders, and health policy makers as envisaged by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC). Individuals must pledge to make lifestyle changes and commit to making healthy choices. More than half of the most common cancers can be prevented by avoiding tobacco and alcohol, altering lifestyle habits such as eating healthy, being physically active, and maintaining a healthy weight, he added.According to him one million new cases of cancer are detected in India every year. A majority of these patients will die, making cancer one of the leading causes of death in the country. Cancer of the breast and cervix are the most common cancers in women while those of the neck, throat, prostate and lung are common in men.Tobacco consumption is on the rise and this will increase cases of oral and lung cancer. Among women, late marriage, early menarche and late menopause are some of the causes of breast cancer, which has overtaken cervical cancer to become the leading type of cancer in metropolitan India. The number of new breast cancer cases is about 1,15,000 per year and this is expected to rise to 2,50,000 new cases per year by 2015, noted Chacko.While the National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP) and the National Cancer Registry Programme (NCRP) map and give information about the prevalence of the disease, screening to detect it early and reduction in the death rate are yet to be addressed adequately.Chacko feels that making cancer a notifiable disease and linking data of non communicable diseases onto databases that link with projects like the UID will give a boost to treatment. This will also help formulate policy.
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