By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI - Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK) Cancer Unit’s in charge Dr Naoor Muhammad Soomro said here that mouth cancer cases are on the rise in Sindh, particularly in urban areas, merely because of excessive use of tobacco products
“In fact, mouth cancer cases are more common in the province due to rising trend of chewing chalia, pan, gutka, sheesha, smoking and other tobaccos substance,” he added.
About breast cancer among women, he said that hormonal imbalance was a major contributing factor in incidents of breast cancer.
He said that the CHK’s Cancer Unit had provided services to 100,062 cancer patients from 2004 to June 2015, besides registering 8,733 new cancer patients.
Giving break-up of the cancer patients registered between 2004 and June 2015, he said that 687 cancer patients were registered in 2004, 630 in 2005, 594 in 2006, 689 in 2007, 750 in 2008, 738 in 2009, 724 in 2010, 692 in 2011, 1,172 in 2012, 829 in 2013, 795 and 433 till June 2015.
Dr Soomro said that of the total 8,733 new cancer patients registered during the period, 5,952 were reported from Karachi, 280 from Hyderabad, 169 Khairpur, 151 from Lasbella, 125 from Larkana, 98 from Mirpurkhas, 95 from Badin, 59 from Dadu, 80 from Nawabshah and 74 from Ghokti.
Giving community-wise details of the cancer patients reported at the health facility, he said that 2,747 cancer cases belonged to Sindhi community, 2,395 (Urdu-speaking), 751 (Baloch), 605 (Pashto), 553 (Punjabi), 275 (Memonai), 178 (Hindko), 193 (Gujrati), 164 (Katchi) and 147 Saraiki-speaking community.
He said that the CHK’s Cancer Unit offers all sorts of cancer treatment facilities free of cost.
According to a report, around 0.2 million people become victim of cancer in Pakistan every year and of them between 25,000 and 30,000 are reported from Sindh.
