"Till about 5 years ago we would have around 150 lung-cancer patients per year in our hospital. Today we are diagnosing >500 cases per year. Of course this is not a matter of pride but the sign of times we are living in. Till 5 years ago ratio of male: female patient was 90:10, but now it is 70-30 in my hospital. More females are now getting diagnosed with lung cancer perhaps due to increase in health awareness. Another surprising fact is that in my hospital survival rate in females is more than in males and there are female patients who have had >7 years survival rate even when diagnosed in stages 3 and 4.
"Lung cancer is the worst type of cancer with the highest mortality rate. Only one-third of the diagnosed patients would survive beyond 1 year, and the best-case scenario gives only a 5 years lease of life and that too in 10%-12% patients only. And yet around 80% cases of lung cancer are preventable as they are related to smoking cigarettes and bidis (usually in males) or use of bio-mass fuel (usually in females). A vast majority of rural Indian women still use this dangerous form of cooking, which is also an important risk factor for lung cancer.
"The rest 20% patients get this dreaded form of cancer as a result of second-hand smoke or through occupational hazards at work place like working in asbestos-related industry, brick kilns, colour industry, glass industry. I have also come across a non-asbestos-related malignant mesothelioma case--he was a farmer using chemical pesticides--which perhaps caused the lung cancer", he shared.
Many studies corroborate that smoking is the leading cause of lung cancer. In one report from India, roughly two-thirds of all patients with lung cancer were smokers, using either cigarettes and/or bidis (hand-rolled tobacco). Another study in China revealed that lung cancer risk was two to four times higher among smokers as compared to non- smokers.
In the United States, cigarette smoking is linked to about 90% of lung cancers. A study conducted by the University of Hong Kong found that smoking increased the lung cancer risk for the elderly by a whopping 421% when compared with non-smokers. A large number of lung-cancer deaths could be prevented by avoiding key risk factors, including tobacco smoke, urban air pollution and indoor smoke from household use of solid fuels. The take-home message would be, as so aptly said by Dr Kant--stay away from tobacco and stay safe from cancer.
Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service - CNS
(The author is the Managing Editor of CNS. She is a J2J Fellow of National Press Foundation (NPF) USA and received her editing training in Singapore. She has earlier worked with State Planning Institute, UP and taught physics at India's prestigious Loreto Convent. She also co-authored and edited publications on gender justice, childhood TB, childhood pneumonia, Hepatitis C Virus and HIV, and MDR-TB. Email: shobha|AT|citizen-news.orgEmail address, website: www.citizen-news.org)
- Shared under Creative Commons (CC) Attribution License
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
