One-sixth cancer patients in Bangladesh suffer from lung cancer

Among the patients coming to the National Cancer Research Institute and Hospital (NCRIH) in the capital, one in every six cancer patients coming for having treatment the suffers lung cancer, the institute’s latest report found.

The report was published at a press briefing in the institute where associate professor of Epidemiology department at the institute Dr Md Zahirul Islam presented the seventh Cancer Registry Report.

Dr Zahirul said that some 83,795 new patients came to the hospital during the time and among them 35,733 people or 42.6 per cent have confirmed or provisional diagnoses of some sorts of cancer are being included in the registry. Among the patients, 19546 persons or 55 per cent of the patients are men while 16,187 (45 per cent) are female.    

He said that lung has been the main leading site of cancers in both sexes (17.4 per cent) while breast came up with the second position (13.4 per cent). Cervix (10.9 per cent), oesophagus (4.9 per cent), stomach (4.3 per cent), liver (3.9 per cent), rectum (3.1 per cent), cheek/buccal mucosa (38 per cent), lymphoma (3.8 per cent) and gallbladder (1.5 per cent) occupied the successive places.

The Business Post obtained a copy of the 2018 report which cites men are most likely to have lung cancer and women are suffering from breast cancer.

In 2018, it has been seen that a huge number of patients (37.9 per cent) were illiterate and about 45 per cent patients had attained primary level education. Agricultural activities were the main profession of men (35.6 per cent) while almost all the females (94.8 per cent) were housewives.

Cancer of the respiratory system and intrathoracic organ (23.9 per cent) were in the top position followed by cancer of the digestive organs (22 per cent), female genital organ cancer (18.4 per cent), breast cancer (14 per cent) and lymph node cancer (11.5 per cent), it added.

The 2018 reports found that lung cancers occupied the first place in male patients (28.3 per cent) followed by Oesophagus (7.0 per cent), stomach (5.4 per cent), liver (5 per cent) and lymphoma (4.2 per cent) in the top five.

According to the report, among female carcinoma of the breast lead the tally (30.9 per cent) followed by cervix (27.9 per cent), lung (6.9 per cent), cheek/buccal mucosa (4 per cent) and oesophagus (3.4 per cent).     

Epidemiology department professor Dr Habib Talukder Raskin said that cancer registry is of two types – hospital and population based registry. And a population based registry is needed for having accurate data on cancer patients across the country.

But in Bangladesh, the government has been able to start a hospital based registry in the year of 2004 and NCRIH is the only hospital with the registry facilities, he added.

The programme (hospital-based registry along with population-based registry) is expected to be expanded to all divisional tertiary level government medical college hospitals with the introduction of a fifth sectoral programme. In a meeting held on February 8 this year, the Health and Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque announced cancer screening very soon, said the professor who will be on post-retirement leave (PRL) from Thursday.