Profile of cancer morbidity in North Bengal region of India: A hospital based study

Background: Cancer usually means malignancy, has become one of the ten leading cause of death in India. The leading sites of cancer vary from country to country. Present study was conducted to find out the proportion of morbidity contributed by different type of cancer in North Bengal region of India.Methods: An observational record based analysis in rural tertiary care hospital settings. Data was collected for the year 2007-8 on the basis of the patients’ record in the hospital. Different sites of cancer were classified according to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), WHO.Results: The three leading sites of cancer irrespective of sex in this study were a) lip, oral cavity and pharynx (C00-14) 23.7%, b) female genital organ (C51-59) 22.7% and c) digestive organ (C15-26) 14.4%. Cervical cancer was the main contributor of the female genital organ cancer (70.2%). The trend of cervical carcinoma increases with Gravida (p<0.05). The most vulnerable age group was 40-64 years. It was also found that malignancy in a) respiratory and intrathoracic organ b) lip, oral cavity and pharynx and c) digestive organ were more prevalent among smokers.Conclusions: The present study only highlights the status of different types of cancer in North Bengal Zone, which partly follows the rank wise cancer prevalence in India. It is a record based study however, an organized population based study can reflect the real scenario.