Prevalence of Cancer in District Banu khyber pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Present study was designed to check prevalence of cancer in residents of District Bannu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Patients data were collected from three consulted Institutes during year 2005-09. The data was analyzed for different parameters; year wise, age wise prevalence, gender wise, occupation wise and marital status wise prevalence, addiction status, type of cancer, site affected, diagnostic tests performed and treatment of cancer. Results revealed that during 2005, a high number of cancer patients were present. A total of 172 patients were in the age group of 51-60 years, while only 11 patients were in age group of 80 plus year. Female patients were more as compared to male. Married people were highly affected than unmarried. Patients addicted to smoking were highly affected than non-addicted patients. Malignancy was high in patients as compared to benign cancer. The most affected site was blood system. The most affected people occupation wise were house wives followed by farmer. Biopsy was mostly conducted for diagnosis of cancer. Most of the patients were treated with chemotherapeutic agents. It has been revealed that the number of cancer patients decreased per annum. Moreover, the study should be conducted on general population of Bannu as well as of the Khyber PakhtunKhwa to sort out the total number of patients. Government should launch preventive, diagnostic programs so that prevalence may be minimized.


Introduction
Cancer origin is accredited to the Greek physician hippocrates (460-370 B.Cs), who was deliberated "Father of Medicine." Hippocrates used the words carcinos and carcinoma to define the ulcer-forming and nonulcer forming tumors (Kardinal and Yarbo, 1979). Cancer is a disease that result from the changes in the cellular behavior due to changes in the genetic material of the cells; as a result cancer cause proliferate in uncontrolled manner forming malignant tumor that tend to grow in an invasive manner, destroying the normal tissue in which they appear (Karp, 1996). In all over the world, cancer is becoming a serious health hazard causing about 12% of deaths and mainly in Asian Pacific countries, it has become the leading cause of death. Different (200) types of cancer that can occur anywhere in the body having different symptoms, causes which require different treatments. Cancers are classified according to the tissue and cell type from which they arise. About 90% of cancers are Carcinomas, those types of tumors that rise in the body's organs tissues. Next to carcinoma, Sarcomas cancers are initiates in muscles, bone, fibrous tissue or fat and cartilage. One type of cancer is Leukemia's, a cancer of blood or their forming organs (Kumar et al., 1989;Doll, 1987;Oldham, 1987). In Pakistan, the common reported male cancer are lungs and oral cancers and female cancers are breast and cervical (Baig and Ali, 2006). In the children of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, reported cancer types are lymphoid and myeloid leukemia, central nervous system cancer (CNS), bone tumors, soft tissue sarcoma, neuroblastoma and cancer of testicular . Prevalence of a disease is clearly an important measure of burden, since describe the new cases that will require medical attention. It is the key measure when considering prevention. Measurement of prevalence requires the identification of all new cases of disease in a define population through some kind of case-finding mechanism, with record-linkage to ensure that persons are not confused with events. This is the function of the populationbased cancer registry. Cancer registries may present prevalence according to histological sub type of cancer, or stage of disease at diagnosis (Ng et al., 2001). Cancer prevalence data is available in the form of hospital and departmental based records in twenty-six cancer centers in the country (Javed, 2006). Exact prevalence in Pakistan is not known but ovarian cancer is the fourth most common cancer among females of Pakistan and continues to present at an advanced stage (Parveen et al., 1999). To collect the cancer data, different methods are used in which cancer registry is compulsory. One of the best methods is the cancer registry which is based on population. The other method is an institution/hospital-based registry of cancer, a significant process delivers useful evidence to researcher and doctors in different cancer treatment (Gress, 2002). Pakistan has a high prevalence of cancer, from its independence in 1947 to the present (Abbas, 2003). Different cancer registries are working in the country to diagnose and provide possible treatment. The data is compared to obtain a net national cancer registration; for example, the differences in the prevalence of cancer in Karachi and Quetta have been studied (Bhurgri et al., 2003). In the scenario of limited resources for implementation of screening programs in Pakistan, the only practical option for early detection is through mass education about cancers, their risk factors, screening modalities and presentation symptoms (Khan et al., 2006). Regular screening examination by health care professional can result in the detection of cancer of the breast colon, rectum, cervix, prostate, testis, oral cavity and skin at earlier stages when treatment is more likely to be successful (Cancer Facts and Figures, 2003). Blood tests, Ultrasound and Computerized tomography (CT scan) (Takalkar et al., 2008), Biopsy (Apantaku, 2000), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) (Elmore et al., 2005). Advances in cancer therapy are made by continual investigation and evaluation of treatment results and their incorporation in the practice of oncology (Miller et al., 1981). Chemotherapy (Karnofsky, 2010) Radiotherapy, or radiation therapy (International Atomic Energy Agency, 2003), large doses of androgenic, estrogenic and adrenal-cortical hormones (Karnofsky, 2010) and surgery (Javed, 2006;Rojas, 2002) are used for the treatment of cancer.
Objective of the present study was to check the Institutional/ Hospital based cancer prevalence and occurrence rate of different types of cancer in people of district Bannu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from 2005 to 2009. The results of the study were focused to get the information of the most infected location, age, gender, marital status, addiction, types of cancer, and test performed for diagnosis of different types of cancer. Also give awareness and proper recommendation to public health regarding cancer so that they may launch certain projects in correlation with the cancer registry centers for proper diagnosis (in time) treatment and also for prevention.

Materials and Methods
The area chosen for this study was district Bannu of Dera Ismail Khan Division Khyber Pukhtunkhawa. Patient's data was collected through a printed Questionnaire. The questions included in the questionnaire were age of the patient, gender, marital status, occupation, address, and diagnostic procedure of cancer, age of diagnosis, types of cancer, site affected and treatment. The data was collected from the files or computerized hospital cancer registry of every patient that was present in Institute of Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine (IRNUM) Peshawar, Shukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Center (SKMCH&RC) Lahore and Nuclear Medicine Oncology and Radiotherapy Institute (NORI) Islamabad. The records files were searched in hospitals during June-July 2010 for the prevalence of cancer of District Dir from January 2004 to December 2009. Data were analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) and arranged according to the parameters; year wise cancer prevalence rate, year wise cancer prevalence, gender wise, year wise male and female, age wise, marital status wise affected site wise, types wise, addiction wise, performed tests wise prevalence. The year wise prevalence rate was determined by using the following formula; Prevalence rate = (new cancer / Population) × 100,000 The data is collected according to the following protocol under reference number ref/01/00266MM:

Gender wise cancer incidence
The gender wise cancer incidence, male and female.

Site wise cancer incidence
Cancer types were distributed into primary Malignent sites.

Cancer incidence based on marital status
Cancer incidence based on marital status divided into married and unmarried.

Cancer incidence based on different types
Cancer incidence based on different types that is Benign and Malignant.
The data has been presented in the form of tables and graphs in result.
Also on treatment wise, tests wise.
The questionnaire has been given as under:

Marital status wise prevalence:
Those cancer patients who visited NORI, 24 (80%) were married and 6 (20%) were unmarried. Cancer patient who consulted NORI, IRNUM and SKMCH & RC from district Bannu were 780, out of which 594 (76.15%) were married, 185 (23.71%) were unmarried and 01 (0.12%) was widow. From these results it has been concluded that the cancer prevalence was high in married patients as shown in Table No. 03 (supplementary material).

Addiction wise prevalence:
There were no any data available for the patients of district Bannu from SKMCH & RC for the prevalence of cancer in addicted patients. From the two institutes data results indicated that most of the cancer patients were addicted to smoking having 42 (6.04%) patients followed by snuff addicted patients having 23 (3.30%) patients out of total 695 patients. From these 205 (29.49%) cancer patients were not addicted to any type of narcotic agents while the remaining 425 (61.15%) patient's data were not reported. This data is shown in the form of Table no. 04.

Site wise cancer prevalence
Combine results of the data which were collected on the basis of primary site affected were arranged conferring to the international organization of diseases, 9th revision, clinical. These data showed that in district Bannu, blood cancer was a leading cancer, 93 (11.92%) patient followed by cancer of digestive system, 92 (11.79%) patient.   Endoscopy 5 0.71%

Discussion
The descriptive statistical analysis of data collected from three different Institutes shows the annual prevalence rate in districts Bannu and information regarding the most infected person especially age wise, gender wise, marital status based, addiction based, types of cancer, most affected site wise and test performed for diagnosis. The data also represents the information about the expected annual increase in cancer prevalence. Total 780 cancer patients were registered into three above mention institutes. An average prevalence per year has been determined for each institute; 0.88 in Nuclear Medicine Oncology and Radiotherapy Institute (NORI) Islamabad, 19.63 in Institute of Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine (IRNUM) Peshawar and 2.5 in Shukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Center (SKMCH&RC) Lahore. Percentage prevalence has been calculated for each year. Increase prevalence per year has been found in IRNUM as compared to rest of institutes. The reason may be easy accessibility to this institute as compared to other. The average annual prevalence in all these institutes for cancer in district Bannu has been calculated as 7.67, which is an alarming. Zeb et al. (2006) had reported a high prevalence (15.6) of cancer at District Dir (Lower). Ali et al. (2009) also studied prevalence of esophageal carcinoma in different sex and age group in the Northern area of Pakistan. Bhurgri et al. (2007) also reported the prevalence rate of breast cancer (30.9) in the female population of Karachi South, during 1995-1997. The decrease in prevalence rate is due to area difference and awareness about cancer among people of District Bannu. Combine collected data were evaluated for the age wise distribution and concluded that mostly affected cancer patients were that of age group of 51-60 years having 172 (22.05%) patients followed by patients of age group of 41-50 years having 152 (19.48%) and the patients were less affected in age group of 70-80 years and 80 plus having 28 (3.58%) and 11 (1.14%) respectively. The present results shows similarities with Jamal et al. (2006), who determined that peak prevalence were in the 50 -60 year age group. Zeb et al. (2006), studying age wise cancer prevalence, found that the highest rate was the cancer of all sites was among the age group of 41-50 and lowest prevalence rate was among the age group of 71-80 years. Same study made by (Ahmad et al., 2007) which shows that mean age for all skin cancers considered together was 58.75+/-15.21. Bhurgri et al. (2005) stated that all sites cancer with age of both male and female were 45.2 years. The reason might be that in aged people there is a great chance of mutation because the activity of immune system decreases. The rate of cancer prevalence is high in female 52.82% then male (47.17%). These finding correlates with the study of Bhurgri et al. (2004), that mentions a high ratio of cancer in female (47.6%) than men (13%). Another study of Burgri et al. (2005) concluded that in Hyderabad the age standardized rates for cancer both in male and female were 91.6 and 96.0 respectively. The present results are not in co-relation with the studies of , Alidina et al. (2004) and Zeb et al. (2006), who analyzed the frequency of cancer and mentioned that male were more affected than female. The probable reason is that in district Bannu, female is responsible for most of the activities either outside the home or inside. They used to do work in the fields according to their culture and society. They are most at risk to environmental factors than male. Cancer prevalence rate was high in married patients 594 (76.15%) than unmarried patients 185 (23.71%) Our study shows contrast with the study performed in other countries which shows high prevalence of cancer in unmarried peoples as stated by James et al., (1987), that unmarried persons still had poorer survival and high rate of cancer prevalence. Cancer patients were addicted to smoking having 42 (5.38%) followed by snuff addicted patients having 23 (2.94%). The same study was conducted by Bhughri et al. (2005), and mentioned that cancer types which are tobacco associated were accountable 40% males and 20% in females for approximately. These results are in agreements with our study. High prevalence rate of malignancy was found which have been supported by Alam at al. (2001), compared world prevalence of ovarian tumor whether benign or malignant with that of local area (Abbotabad). Ahmad et al. (1991) also presented a study of 14,018 malignant tumors from Northern Pakistan. Blood cancer was a leading cancer followed by cancer of digestive system, breast, brain, respiratory system, lymphatic & hemopiotic system, urinary system, oral cavity and male/ female genital organ. Related results to present study have mentioned by , that analyzed that the reported cancer in female was breast cancer. Our results are also in-correlation with Bhurgri et al. (2002). Jamal et al. (2006) has mentioned 10.8% GIT malignancies in Northern Pakistan. Skin cancer prevalence reported by Ahmad et al. (2007). Baig and Ali, (2006) have also mentioned that breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer among female. And mostly cancer patients in the selected institutes were mostly diagnosed through biopsy followed by X-ray, different blood tests, CAT scan, MRI and endoscopy. These tests are most authentic and accurate for diagnosis of various types of cancer.

Conclusion:
From the present study it has been concluded that there is heavy burden of cancer in district Bannu. Female are more affected than male. Most of the female are left undiagnosed/untreated due to their social, economic, religious and customary matters. There must be proper checkup of female as healthy female contributes well in a healthy society. Cancer registry institutes playing a major role in registration, diagnosing and treating cancer patients throughout Pakistan. The cancerous patients need more care and proper treatment to whom, these cancer registry institutes giving a proper concentration and emphasis is usually given on proper diagnosis and treatment. The results also reveal that sophisticated facilities/staff are available at these institutes.

Recommendations:
➢ Regular screening must me there and people should be guided about the early signs & symptoms of cancer, so if cancer does exit it will diagnosed in early stage when it is most responsive to treatment. ➢ Positive changes in habits and routine are strongly recommended for the prevention of cancer because most of the causation factors of cancer can be controlled by healthy life style choices. ➢ Proper care of health should be taken as people having immune system diseases are more susceptible to cancer. ➢ Cigarettes and other tobacco products like pipes snuff and chewing tobacco, which are linked to lungs and oral cavity cancer must be avoided. ➢ Media would show its vital role in awareness of society about the cancer. ➢ Medical societies and universities should arrange seminars and awareness programs about the cancer. ➢ Ministry of health should conduct survey and mass screening after regular intervals, so that it may know the status of cancer among of the people and also it should have up to date information about prevalence and prevalence of cancer.