Population Based Cancer Registry of India – the Challenges and Opportunities

Cancer is one of the important causes of morbidity and mortality in India. Globally, out of 14 million diagnosed new cancer cases slightly more than 1 million were from India. Population Based Cancer Registries (PBCRs) plays a vital role in formulating cancer control plans as well as in monitoring their success. The article identifies challenges and opportunities for the PBCRs in India. Major challenges of PBCRs in India are-low coverage, urban dominance, quality assurance in data, less awareness among rural people, lack of follow-up and survival data, timeliness, high cost of registration, non-linkage of PBCR with other PBCRs and Hospital Based Cancer Registries (HBCRs) and generalization of estimates at country level. Expansion of cancer atlas project, real time data collection, entering Aadhar number (UID) during registration and establishing linkage among various PBCRs and PBCRs with HBCRs will improve cancer registration and its quality on a short-term basis. However, the opportunity of development new PBCRs in linkage with existing Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) will increase coverage as well as sustainability of PBCRs in India.