India’s Silent Cancer Crisis: The Alarming Stats No One’s Talking About
India’s cancer rate continues to grow significantly affecting over 1.5 millions cases Annually. Though being the biggest health threat, conversations in the country often centre around easily curable infectious diseases like dengue, malaria, TB etc. Multiple factors like lack of awareness, late detection, cost of treatment, accessibility etc are responsible for the rise in the cases, which demands an urgent attention.
As per a report by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), India reported over 1.46 million cancer cases in 2022, while the numbers have been estimated to 15.3 millions in 2024. Every year over 8 lakhs people die of cancer in India, making it the second leading cause of death in India after heart disease. Today, India ranks 3rd, just after China and the United States of America in the global average of cancer patients.
Multiple factors are responsible for the rise in cases, among which tobacco and other lifestyle factors, hits the chart. Tobacco remains the single largest cause of cancer in India, contributing to nearly one third of all cases, particularly oral and lung cancer. ALong with this, sedentary lifestyles, poor diet, pollution and alcohol use also accelerates the cancer burden.
Cancer in Women
Cancer in women has also seen an incremental growth, in the past decade. Today, nearly 40% of all female cancers are dominated by breast and cervical cancers. Though cervical cancer today is highly preventable with HPV vaccines, lack of awareness and poorer accessibility to proper cancer care leave millions vulnerable.
Multiple factors are responsible for the growth in cancer cases, like :
- ACCESSIBILITY: Talking about accessibility, with better diagnostics facilities in the urban areas, early cancer detection is quite possible, however, in rural India, the lack of proper healthcare infrastructure will lead to delayed diagnosis, and can significantly reduce survival rate in cancer patients. This urban rural divide remains a critical issue and needs to be accessed.
- ECONOMIC BURDEN: Cancer treatment in India is not affordable. Lakhs of rupees are spent by cancer patients and their families, leaving them and their families in a financial collapse, due to prolonged medical expenses. Even with many Government Schemes or Insurances, it is not enough and demands for affordable cancer care are yet to be heard.
- AWARENESS: True awareness about cancer is still at large. For people to have accessible treatment and early detection, all we need is:
- Right public awareness and education by cancer care units, NGOs and government.
- Frequent Screening programs
- Tobacco COntrol MEasures
Cancer is a social healthcare crisis. WIth millions getting affected each year, with numbers increasing year on year, India needs to move toward right awareness. Remember cancer might be treatable but if detected early, and to detect early, you need to have the right awareness, right and cost effective healthcare infrastructure, and good accessibility.