Life time risk for development of ten major cancers in India and its trends over the years 1982 to 2000.

BACKGROUND

Understanding cancer magnitude, risk and trends will be of help in cancer control programs.

AIM: To study trends in cumulative risk up to 64 years of age as lifetime risk of developing major cancers in India during the years 1982 to 2000.

DESIGN

Retrospective.

SETTING

Secondary sources of cancer-registration data.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

Data on age-specific cancer-incidence rates were collected for patients 0-64 years of age of either sex for 10 major cancer sites from the National Cancer Registry Program (NCRP) reports of India from Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Bhopal and Delhi; and Barshi registries for the years 1982 or 1988 to 2000.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Cumulative risks computed for lifetime development of cancer. Linear trends were studied using simple linear regressions.

RESULTS

The lifetime risk among females for the 10 cancer sites ranged from 0.02 to 3.3% and from 0.04 to 2.4% for the years 1982 and 2000 respectively; whereas among males, it ranged from 0.04 to 0.89% and from 0.05 to 0.95% respectively. Significant (P<0.05) increasing trends were observed for breast, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), gallbladder, thyroid and ovary cancers among females; while declining trends were observed for cervix, mouth, stomach, esophagus and tongue cancers. Among males, significant (P<0.05) increasing trends wre observed for NHL and prostate cancer; whereas declining trends were observed for stomach, liver, hypopharynx and tongue cancers. Cancers of mouth and esophagus showed increasing trends (P<0.05) in some regions and declining trends (P<0.05) in some other.

CONCLUSION

Significant and higher rates of positive trends in lifetime cancer risks for breast cancer among females and for NHL among both sexes were observed.