National Health Profile 2015 repeats cancer data: 20 pc increase in next 5 yrs

According to the NHP, the cancer incidence in men will rise from the current 5,22,164 to 6,22,203 in 2020. Despite the countrywide ban on gutkha, mouth cancer will register a 51 per cent jump. There will be a 48 per cent increase in prostate cancer, 31 per cent increase in liver cancer and 22 per cent increase in lung cancer.

All these findings were reported in the last NHP.

The health ministry has no access to cancer data after 2011. So, all cancer data published in the health profile documents for the last two years have been sourced from a report that was released in 2013 by the Indian Council of Medical Research. The three-year report of the 25 population based cancer registries (PBCR) analysed data collated between 2009 and 2011.

“The cancer data is collated in Bengaluru and sent to us. This year they never sent us any data… We decided to go with the existing data… However, we have asked for a clarification on the missing cancer data,” said Arvind Kumar, assistant director of the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence (CBHI) which collated the report.

Only one set of data — crude rate, age-adjusted rate, truncated rate per 100,000 population in differenct PBCRs — was different. But a senior ICMR official from Bengaluru told The Indian Express: “That is clearly an error. There has been no new data since the publication of our report in 2013.”

Meanwhile, the report showed a slight upward curve in the incidence of acute respiratory infections — 3,34,23,107 in 2013 and 3,48,14,636 in 2014 — though more people died of the problem in 2013. The incidence of chicken pox too went up marginally, with 31,600 cases and 63 deaths in 2013 and 34,447 cases and 57 deaths in 2014.