Lung cancer in the Kashmir valley

Lung cancer has been found to be the second commonest cancer according to a hospital-based data from Kashmir, India. However, no incidence studies are available.

To ascertain the incidence of lung cancer in Kashmir.

All newly histologically diagnosed cases of lung cancer seen in various hospital and private laboratories of the Kashmir valley were registered over a period of two years (January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2005). Also included were patients attending the various oncological service areas of the institute and those diagnosed from any other laboratory outside the state. The incidence rate was calculated using the January 2005 population as the reference population estimated using the census-based projected populations.

Four hundred and sixty-two incident cases of lung cancer were seen during the study period. The crude incidence rate, age standardized (world) and truncated age adjusted (40-69 years, world) incidence rates for lung cancer per 100 000 population were 4.01, 6.48 and 15.28 respectively (males 6.55, 10.09 and 23.94 respectively and females 1.19, 2.14 and 4.65). The age adjusted rates for males in district Srinagar was 19.34 per 100 000. One hundred and fifty nine (69.8%) of the 221 had a history of Hukkah smoking.

Even though Kashmir as a whole is a low incidence area for lung cancer (ASR of < 15), Srinagar district has the highest incidence of lung cancer among the males in Kashmir. The data presented is assumed to be the closest approximation to a population-based data registry and the geographical incidence maps of ICMR need appropriate updating.