mumbai indias cancer burden will almost double to 20 lakh cases in the next 20 years and mainly due to demographic changes says a new study the country registered 116 lakh new cancer cases in 2018 according to globocan the world health organisations cancermapping programmethe impending doubling can be attributed to the ongoing transitions in india from an infectious diseases hub to the capital of several noncommunicable diseases and shift from rural to urban areas this is the gist of the study published on saturday in journal of global oncology by dr mohandas k mallath who was formerly with tata memorial hospital and is now with tata cancer centre in kolkatamost of the increase in patients with cancer in india is attributable to its epidemiologic transition and the improvement and increased use of cancer diagnostics in india he saidapproximately 40 to 50 of cancers are due to random mutations during dna replications and the longer a person lives the higher the chances of accumulation of the random mutations if you dont die at a young age due to infection or trauma then the chances of dying at an older age from noncommunicable diseases including cancer will increase said dr mallathdr rajendra badwe director of tata memorial centre in parel concurred giving three reasons for the absolute increase in cancer numbers in the countrypopulation increase increase in life expectancy and most important economic transition in the past two decades life expectancy has increased by 10 years said dr badwe considering that the incidence of cancer in the 5464 age group is almost twice that in the 3444 age group this is a major contributormoreover cancer incidence shows a massive difference in urbanrural terms the cancer rate in urban areas is 90110 per lakh while it is 6075 in semiurban areas and between 40 and 50 among the rural population said dr badweevery census shows that 10 of rural areas transition to semiurban areas and another 5 of semiurban areas to urban areas leading to an increase in cancer ratesdr mallath wrote the article tracing the origins of cancer detection and epidemiology because of the questions he is regularly asked is there a cancer epidemic in india why did i get cancer when i dont smoke drink or eat nonvegetarian food these are two questions i am asked at my clinic in kolkata and elsewhere for over a decade said dr mallaththe study also underlines the need to pay more attention to cancer public cancer facilities in india are woefully inadequate and there is large presence of private cancer care facilities some have exploited this situation by selling vulnerable patients unproven therapies to prevent cure or control cancer as a result of the great increase in cancer all public cancer treatment facilities are overcrowded and teeming with patients resulting in indias cancer problem being called an epidemic or a tsunami said the authorsthe total cancer burden is projected to double by 2040 to around 20 lakh cases if cancer diagnosis catches up