Health Minister V S Sivakumar has called upon the medical community, especially oncologists, to formulate programmes that would increase awareness in society about cancer.
He was delivering the inaugural address at the 28th annual review meeting of the National Cancer Registry Programme of the ICMR hosted by the Regional Cancer Centre (RCC) here on Thursday.
‘’Unfortunately most of the cancer cases are reported late and this underlines the need for an increased awareness among the public. Increased awareness would result in increased cancer control,’’ the minister said.
Explaining that there are 27 population-based cancer registries and 7 hospital-based cancer registries in the country, Sivakumar said that the population-based registries are the primary source for planning.
RCC director Dr Paul Sebastian said that both these registries are used extensively by academic institutions. ‘’But apart from that, the data helps the State Government in planning, infrastructure development and formulating strategies for cancer control,’’ he said.
Dr Paul Sebastian, who pointed out that this is the third time that the RCC is hosting the annual review meeting of the National Cancer Registry Programme, said that the cancer registries also played a significant role in increasing the allocation of funds for cancer prevention. The RCC had earlier hosted the programme in 1982 and 1986.
The RCC director cited the example of cervical cancer, the incidence of which in the state is coming down. This was an obvious result of better awareness among the public, he said.
Health Minister V S Sivakumar, on the occasion, released the 30-year report of the hospital-based Cancer Registry of RCC by handing over a copy to G K Rath, chief of the Dr B R Ambedkar Institute-Rotary Cancer Hospital, AIIMS, New Delhi, who also delivered the keynote address.
Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology director Dr K Radhakrishnan released the hospital-based cancer registry annual report for the year 2010.