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Breast cancer now deadliest of all types

Cervical cancer used to be the most common and biggest killer of Indian women among all cancers claiming one life every seven minutes, according to data available in 2008. At that time breast cancer, largely seen as an urban woman's bane claimed one life every 10 minutes.

Now, Globocan 2012, a software prepared by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), has used data from the Indian Census in 2011 to show that breast cancer has upstaged cervical cancer as the most common cancer among Indian women. "The figures are still an estimate but we do believe that breast cancer is the most common cancer among Indian women today ," said Dr Rajendra Badwe, a breast cancer surgeon who heads the Tata Memorial Centre in Parel.

In fact, Globocan 2012 shows that breast cancer affects 25 out of every 1 lakh women in India; cervical cancer affects 22. "There is a direct link between the incidence of cervical cancer and a lack of hygiene and sanitation. When countries develop and hygiene and sanitation improves, there is an automatic decrease in cervical cancer rates,'" said Indian Centre of Medical Research (ICMR) director Dr Soumya Swaminathan. "And, for some reason that we have not yet fully understood, the incidence of breast cancer increases with development. India is clearly going through this phase that other developed countries have witnessed,'' added Swaminathan.

Dr Sachin Almel, medical oncologist from Hinduja Hospital, Mahim, pointed out that governmental agencies and the medical community had managed to create awareness about the need for women to undergo early pap smear tests to detect cervical cancer.

The number of women affected by breast cancer had been increasing in the last two decades.

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