Projection of cancer incidence in five cities and cancer mortality in India

Background: Cancer is second largest non-communicable disease and it has a sizable contribution in the total number of deaths. It is important for the public health professionals to understand the dynamics of cancer incidence for future strategies. Therefore, this paper is attempted with the objective of projecting number of cancer incidence for five cities namely, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Bhopal and Mumbai and to estimate the cancer mortality rate for all India for the year 2008. Materials and Methods: The data were used from the Indian Council of Medical Research's publication of Population-Based Cancer Registry for the year 1999-2000. The population was calculated from the Census reports of 1991 and 2001. Causes-specific mortality report by the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence was used for estimating cancer mortality for all India. The age-specific rate method is utilized to project number of cancer incidence for the cities of Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Bhopal and Mumbai and to estimate cancer mortality in 2000 for all India. Results and Conclusion: About 26.6% increase is expected in the registered number of cancer cases in these five cities and 52.68% increase is projected for Delhi which would mean highest number of cases in Delhi among these five cities within a span of eight years. And in Mumbai it is expected to have a marginal decline in the number of cases for the year 2008 (around -3.25%). The age adjusted analysis indicates that Mumbai is experiencing the higher incidence rate among the five cities studied herein. It is estimated about 50% cancer mortality is reported from the age group 55 and above years.