Gutkha eats into good health: Oral cancer up

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

Oral cancer is striking fast and across age groups. Around 8-10 per cent of the people examined during a random survey by the Indian Cancer Society this year have been found to be at the pre-oral cancer stage.

This means that they run the risk of developing cancer in the next five to six years if they do not stop chewing tobacco.

Of the 3,731 people checked by the mobile oral cancer detection vans of the Society till end of November, 327 (8.76 per cent) were found to be at the pre-cancerous stage. While 290 of them are males, 37 females have been found to have the same symptoms.

Indian Cancer Society officials said the figures were approximately the same in 2002. Of the 2,880 patients checked last year, 288 were found to be at the pre-cancerous stage.

According to the Society, the numbers are increasing among the middle class, the new segment being middle-aged women. "The signs one looks for at the pre-cancerous stage are white and red spots in the mouth, tightening of the muscles in the face, typical pouches in the mouth. If a person is found to be have any such sign, we know a cancer is developing," says Jyotsna Govil, joint secretary of Indian Cancer Society of Delhi. According to her, the condition can be reversed if a person stops consuming tobacco orally.

The Society has collated the figures after checking patients in its oral cancer detection camps and at the cancer detection centre on Babar Road. Govil says: "The sweet, scented and flavoured pouches of tobacco, which are easily available and cheap, and the so called filtered gutkha have become a rage with teenagers and others."

"According to reports, nearly 40 per cent of the school and college students — some of them as young as eight years old — are addicted to chewing tobacco," she says.

According to Govil, the growing trend of chewing gutkha is one of the main reasons for the 20-30 per cent increase in the number of people at the pre-cancerous stage of mouth, throat or lung cancers.

The figures noticed at the cancer detection centre and mobile camps cut across sections of the society.

Govil says: "When we started in 1983, the percentage of people at the pre-cancerous stage was not even four per cent, but today out of every hundred people we check 10 are at a pre-cancerous stage for oral cancer."

90 pc patients are tobacco chewers

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), oral cancers account for one third of cancer cases, with 90 per cent being tobacco chewers. Chewing tobacco causes sub-mucous fibrosis in the mouth, a common cause of cancer.

The dangers of nicotine and tar, found in tobacco products especially bidis, are not fully understood. Reports have also confirmed the presence of unspecified amounts of tar even in the so-called ‘safe’ tobacco products being sold on the ‘no-nicotine’ platform.