POONA: The view that the incidence of cancer was as common in India as in the West was expressed by Dr. V.R. Khanolker of the Tata Memorial Hospital in Bombay, speaking on the “susceptibility of Indians to cancer” at a meeting held in connection with the joint meeting of the India Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Sciences which is being held here. The reason for apparent infrequency, he said, was probably due to two reasons — the age composition of Indian population and secondly, probably due to error in diagnosis of the disease.

The first point was clearly expressed by Prof. A.V. Hill, when recently in the House of Commons, he said that the average new-born child in India has an even chance of living up to 22 while in Britain and America the same child has an even chance of surviving up to 70.

The incidence of [different types of] cancer, however, he said, [varied] in different regions of India. For instance, cancer of the cheek was to be generally found among Maharashtrians, cancer of the back of the tongue among Gujeratis, cancer of the palate among the Andhras and liver cancer among people of Madras. (Dawn, Delhi)

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2014