Cancer: The Most Feared Disease

Abstract

With an estimated 21 million people, Pakistan is a heavily populated, developing nation. The general population's lack of awareness, an unclean lifestyle, and unsanitary circumstances in populated regions are the main causes of Pakistan's endemic prevalence of various infectious and non-communicable diseases. Studies on the prevalence and incidence of cancer in Pakistan are extremely rare. Only Karachi and Lahore previously had cancer registers, but in 2015 the Pakistan Health Research Council (PHRC) in Islamabad launched a national cancer registry. Females have a significantly higher age-standardized ratio for cancer (172/100000) than males have (145/100000). Recently, Pakistan has seen 150,000 new cases of cancer, with 60–80 percent of patients dying. In Pakistan, between 7000 and 7500 kids are diagnosed with cancer each year.

In Pakistan, communicable illnesses and malnutrition are the leading causes of child mortality. Better diagnostic tools have led to cancer being a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in children. Data readily available indicates that 10% of all cancer cases reported in 2017 were juvenile malignancies. According to Pakistan's Karachi Cancer Registry, the two most common children cancers are leukaemia (31%) and lymphomas (20%). According to data from the Punjab Cancer Registry, lymphomas (31%) are more common than leukaemia (23%) overall. The recently established PHRC National Cancer Registry has very little information available at this time that demonstrates the prevalence of children cancers.

An accurate surveillance system for cancer incidence and death is absolutely necessary. Population-based cancer registries are quite rare in the nation. There ought to be more cancer registries in a nation with more than 21 million citizens. In Pakistan, the most often diagnosed cancers are head and neck carcinoma, colon, prostate, lung, breast, and liver cancers. Different malignancies have varying chances of being cured. But every malignancy requires a unique approach to treatment. Different methods of fighting cancer include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation treatment, bone marrow transplant, immunotherapy, hormone therapy, targeted medication therapy, and cryoablation. The mechanism for gathering data needs to be improved, and the data should be pooled at the national level. Only when such data are available will it be possible for policymakers to allocate priceless healthcare resources sensibly.