At
~6%, cancer is the 3rd biggest cause of mortality in India after cardiovascular
and respiratory diseases. The total number of new cancer cases annually in
India is expected to rise from ~1.3 million to reach ~1.5 million by 2025,
growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of ~2% from 2020 to 2025. Our
report highlights the current status of top cancers in men and women. It also
sheds light on the main barriers related to screening, diagnosis, and treatment
stages and how MedTech and HealthTech companies can help improve outcomes by
making the technologies more accessible and affordable
Below
is an insightful excerpt from our report.
There
is still limited access to screening and diagnosis of cancer, with almost 90%
of comprehensive cancer treatment centers in major cities, while ~70% of the
population is in rural areas. Although the cancer incidence rate per million
population is relatively smaller compared to the developed countries like USA
& UK, it might just be the tip of the iceberg with limited access to
diagnosis and treatment for the majority of the population. Very recently a parliamentary panel has
recommended Cancer to be a notified disease, to record the cancer incidence
rate and death rate more accurately through the creation of a CoWin-like
portal. The major finding of this parliamentary panel was that only 10% of the
Indian population was covered in the Population-Based Cancer Registry program
(PBCR) and Hospital-Based Cancer Registry
The
other major issue - limited access to screening and detection of cancer - is
primarily because of the low penetration of diagnostic imaging equipment like
CT, MRI, Mammography, PET CT, etc. There is also resistance amongst the general
population to voluntarily opt for cancer screening tests. Currently, molecular
diagnostics-based genetic risk assessment tests are very expensive and beyond
the reach of most people.
The
Government of India launched a major initiative of establishing 1.5 lac health
and wellness centers in 2018, with about 1.1 lacs centers already in operation
by March 2022, where there is a program to screen for the most common cancers
of the breast, cervical and oral. Hopefully, this program will help in
enhancing the access to basic screening for these 3 cancers.