When it comes to cancer cases reported in Delhi, breast cancer in women and lung cancer in men have seized the top two spots.
According to an ICMR cancer factsheet created using information gathered over a ten-year period, 10.5% of male cancer patients had lung cancer, compared to 27.8% of female cancer patients who had breast cancer.
‘The trend has been going on for the last 10 years and cancer in men and women is mostly because of urbanisation and lifestyle factors. Late marriages, obesity, fewer children and late childbirth lead to hormonal changes in the body which cause cancer (among women). Lung cancer is mostly related to smoking and pollution,’ said Dr SVS Deo, head of surgical oncology at AIIMS Delhi.
As per ICMR data, tobacco contributed to 41.2% of cancer cases in Delhi’s men and 12.4% in women.
According to Dr. Deo, many women have begun to volunteer for early screening, and those who carry cancer-causing genes occasionally choose mastectomy: But only 10-15% of breast cancers can run in families owing to genetic abnormalities, while 80% of breast cancers are caused by factors related to a sedentary lifestyle.
Which is the second most common cancer?
The cancer data, collected through a network of population-based cancer registries (PBCRs) and hospital-based cancer registries (HBCRs) of seven hospitals in Delhi, showed that mouth and cervical cancer were the second-most common cancers in men and women respectively. Around 7.5% of male cancer patients had mouth cancer and 10% of female cancer patients had the disease in their cervix.
