Publication:

An epidemiological analysis of cancer patients admitted to hospitals in Chennai, Tamil Nadu

India is now in the epidemiological transition stage of having to face the challenge of increasing number of both communicable and non-communicable diseases burden. Recently cancers have become the second most fatal disease among the non-communicable diseases category next only to cardiovascular diseases. Cancer affects all age groups and both sexes with a high mortality rate and low survival rate. Cancer registration is the process of continuing systematic collection of epidemiological data on reportable neoplasms with the purpose of helping to assess and control the impact of malignant disease in the community. The cancer registries are mainly of two types: Population based cancer registry and hospital based cancer registry. The Population-Based Cancer Registries (PBCRs) are aimed to identify all cases of cancer that occur in a defined population while Hospital Based Cancer Registries (HBCRs) aim at the improvement of cancer therapy. Recently, the Madras Metropolitan Tumour Registry (MMTR) Chennai had published a report on various hospital based statistics about cancer patients from 2007-2010. The report gives exhaustive details of nearly 13 categories of variables related to cancer management and characteristics attributed to both males and females patients separately. Objective of this article is to analyze the epidemiological details of cancer patients registered with the reporting hospitals in Chennai in relation to the age, sex, site of cancers, diagnostic methods, treatment of choice, mortality etc. among the cancer groups based on the cancer registry for the period from 2007 to 2010, in order to understand the epidemiological trend of the disease in and around Chennai at present.