Cancer Registration in India

Cancer registries are important tools for establishing surveillance system for cancer care. Population-based cancer registries are useful in planning cancer control programs because they provide information on burden and time trends and monitor intervention programs. Hospital-based cancer registries are important to provide clinical care information on cancer patients admitted in hospital and can evaluate the success of treatment protocols for providing survival data. In India, the establishment of registries, particularly registries in rural areas, is challenging because of poor health infrastructure and documentation of case files. Therefore, establishment of rural registry requires different set-ups and methodologies than those adopted for establishing urban registries. It is estimated that there are over 1.1 million new cancer cases in India. The variations in cancer burden according to rural and urban areas have been highlighted by registries. The variations in leading cancer sites by geographical location have also been demonstrated. All registries in India have an increase in rates of breast cancer, while a substantial decline has been seen in rates of cervical cancer over the past 15 years. Many more cancer registries are required in India to cover different geographical locations and rural areas. Registries so far have been extremely useful to inform on cancer burden and time trends of cancer over the years and have provided information to generate hypotheses to plan epidemiological studies.