Can india win the fight in narrowing the gap between metro centric cancer care and rural outreach?

Author: 
Santanu Chaudhuri., Sanjeev K Gupta,. Debashis Panda., NavinKumar., Aneesh PM., Neeraj Kumar., Sujit N Sinha and Ankit Goyal

Introduction: Radiotherapy forms an integral part of cancer treatment and defining a dedicated cancer Centre without radiotherapy facilities is unacceptable. India is a developing country, categorized under LMICs. Healthcare facilities at semi-urban and rural places in India are grimmer and so as the cancer care facilities.
Material and methods: Data collected through telephonic interviews from the radiotherapy centers listed by AERB, India released in May 2016. Data for state-wise population for 2016 and 2026 was taken from the registrar general and census commissioner, India, and projected. However, for projection of density, cancer incidence and prevalence for 2016 and 2026 was projected by exponential method. Also, we assumed that the state-level prevalence and incidence of cancer in 2015 will not change over time in 2016.
Results: Most of the cancer care facilities are present in developed cities and metros and the rest other places are devoid of such facilities in spite of higher incidence and prevalence of cancer. These types of uneven distribution of facilities also affect the treatment outcome.
Conclusion: Infrastructure for the treatment of cancer patients pertaining to radiotherapy treatment units should be upgraded, as per WHO guidelines tobridgethe gap between metros and non-metro areas.

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DOI: 
http://dx.doi.org/10.24327/ijcar.2018.15081.2752
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