South Indians at high risk of having Gastric cancer!

PNS| HYDERABAD

With environmental variables like dietary habits, consumption of tobacco, alcohol and helicobacter pylori infection, there is big news now! Uptick in stomach cancers among South Indians is becoming a major thing. To learn about the most common cancer spreading in the country, we spoke to a few doctors who made us aware that it can develop in any part of our stomachs.

“Gastric cancer, often known as stomach cancer, is the most frequent cancer worldwide and the third most common disease among our women. The fact that stomach cancer, behind lung and colorectal cancers, is the third most common cancer-related cause of death globally highlights the aggressiveness of the illness and the need for better treatment alternatives. Gastric cancer has a high rate of local and distant recurrence, which indicates that the illness has already begun to spread throughout the body and highlights the need for multimodality treatment, which combines surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, to treat the condition. People who consume a lot of items preserved by salting, such as salted fish and meat and pickled vegetables, have a higher chance of developing stomach cancer. Regular consumption of processed, grilled, or charcoaled meats seems to also raise the risk of stomach tumours that are not cardiac.

Gastroesophageal reflux is one of the risk factors for stomach cancer top i.e., a reversal of stomach acid into the esophagus. The southern region of India has the highest rate of stomach cancer, unbelievable! Because of their eating habits, which mostly consist of high levels of processed meat and salt. The likelihood of recovery from non-surgical endoscopic therapy increases with earlier discovery. Because symptoms may not show up in the early stages of the disease, diagnosis is frequently delayed,” tells Dr. Sachin Marda, consultant oncologist from Yashoda Hospitals. Early stomach cancers can be effectively removed with endoscopic techniques and have high cure rates.

So, don’t worry. Although for more awareness, we have Dr. Niti Raizada, Director of Medical Oncology and Hemato-Oncology at Fortis Hospital, “Cancer registries are still evolving. Under-reporting and inconsistently reporting data make data compilation and reporting difficult. This may have caused certain inaccuracies in reporting of cancers amongst various states. Helicobacter pylori infection, frequently acquired since childhood and persists unless removed, is a key environmental factor at play here. Gastritis, intestinal metaplasia, dysplasia, are all possible long-term effects of H. pylori infection.

Smoking is a significant behavioural risk factor. The incidence of gastric cancer is higher in men and women who smoke compared to nonsmokers by 60% and 20%, respectively, according to a major systematic analysis research. Smoking intensifies the carcinogenic implications of the H. pylori infection. It is estimated that 10% of people with stomach cancer have a family history of the disease too.”