40% men, 20% women suffer from oral cancer in Gadchiroli: Study

NAGPUR: Rural and tribal areas of

Gadchiroli

district in

Vidarbha

have one of the highest incidence of mouth cancers in the country due to rampant consumption of smokeless or chewing tobacco.


Of all cancers in district 40% men suffer from mouth cancer while this number is 20% in women which proves the rampant use of chewing tobacco in both men and women in the tribal district. This number is just 12% at national level.

A report released at the Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH) on Wednesday jointly by TMH and the Gadchiroli based organization SEARCH headed by Dr Abhay Bang shows that about 55 news cancer cases are added every year per one lakh of population in the rural parts of the district which is a very high incidence. Also, surprisingly mouth cancers were the second leading cancers among women which is highly unexpected. 50% cancers among males and 30% among females were tobacco related.

Dr Yogesh Kolkonde, co-principal investigator of the project from SEARCH, through which a study was conducted for ascertaining the incidence of cancers in the district (except Gadchiroli city), told TOI that extrapolation of the data collected over two years for 2015-16 has shown that about 550 new cancers cases are added in the district’s population in the tribal and rural area.

Gadchiroli has a population of about 10 lakh. “Consuming tobacco by women is a socially accepted tradition in Gadchiroli especially tribal women. The incidence of cervical cancer in women here was highest followed by mouth and breast cancers,” he said.

Dr Kolkonde stressed on the method of data collection for developing this population based cancer registry (PBCR). He said that since there is no data available for Gadchiroli, the SEARCH and TMH team developed its own method for it. This involved three steps, collection of data of death from the very few hospitals that exist in district, going door-to-door and seeking information based on ‘verbal autopsy’ or information shared by family on the symptoms which could have caused the death of the patients. “This is for the first time that such a data collection technique has been used by SEARCH in the under resourced settings on district,” he said.

Dr Bang, SEARCH director, stated that tobacco has emerged as key public health problem in Gadchiroli and SEARCH along with the Government of Maharashtra and Tata Trusts have developed a programme, ‘Muktipath’ to reduce tobacco and alcohol use in Gadchiroli district.

Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, Deputy Director, TMH attributed this shockingly high incidence of oral cancer to traditional use of chewing tobacco with Supari among the population. This is compounded with high incidence of alcohol use also. “Needless to say, poor health care services has led to most patients presenting in advanced stages and dying within few months of diagnosis,” he added.

Dr Rajendra Badwe, Director TMH stressed on the need to increase cancer registration in rural areas to improve its control and treatment in Gadchiroli with the help of Public Health Department. Dr Rajesh Dikshit, Director of Centre for Cancer Epidemiology at the TMH highlighted that this new method of cancer registration could be useful in other under resourced settings in India as well as other developing countries.

Besides Dr Kalkonde, Dr Rani Bang and Dr Mrunal Kolkonde were the co-investigators while Dr Sunil Jadhao and Dr Manveen Kaur were the cancer registrars and Dr Rajesh Dikshit, Dr Suyash Kulkarni and Dr Atul Budukh from TMH were the members of the project.