Indians Lose Millions of Productive Years to Cancer

By siliconindia | Tuesday, 16 October 2012, 12:40 Hrs

The Indian women are on the list with more health loss and productive years than men. Men lost 1,606 DALYs where as women lost 1,900 DALYs per lakh population. They are affected the most by breast cancer with 362 DALYs and cervical cancers with 466 DALYs, which steals the highest number of productive years.

In men lung cancers have 187 DALYs for every lakh of population, oral cavity is next with 163 DALYs followed by oesophagus with 123 DALYs, stomach with 102 DALYs and leukemia shows 105 DALY. The DALYs was derived by calculating the years of life lost (YLLs) along with the years lived with disability (YLDs) from 27 sites of cancer in12 world regions with total 184 countries. The study shows that three types of cancer myeloma, melanoma and thyroid take more healthy years of the women’s life than men in India.

As per Tata memorial Hospital in Mumbai, which recently published its cancer findings in the Lancet states that 70 percent of the cancer death happens between the age group of 30-69, which is considered as the most productive years. An estimate of 5.6 lakh died of cancer in 2010 in India.

"Our study represents an important first step towards establishing an evidence base for fatal and non-fatal cancer-related outcomes that is urgently needed to set priorities in cancer control." Said IARC lead author Dr Isabelle Soerjomataram, as reported by Kounteya Sinha for TNN