Industrial pollution blamed for lung cancer

CHENNAI: Industrial pollution has resulted in rise in lung cancer cases in Chennai, according to a cancer expert. Dr T G Sagar, director of Cancer Institute, Adyar told Express on Wednesday that a decade ago there was a rise in stomach cancer cases among men and now a recent study in Chennai has pointed that there has been a sudden shift with rise in lung cancer cases.“This can be attributed to industrial pollution besides lifestyle changes and ageing,” said Dr Sagar.He also said as per the population registry, there has been a change in the pattern of cancer among women in urban and rural parts of the state.In urban India there has been a shift in cancer among the female population with rise in prevalence of breast cancer. In the last decade women in urban India were suffering from cervical cancer. Similarly, in rural population the prevalence of cervical cancer is more than breast cancer, he said.Dr Sagar said that the state has 60,000 cancer patients every year but consumes only 25 kg of morphine. “We should be consuming 10 times more of morphine,” he said. “There is availability of morphine but the private medical institutions should be motivated so they will be in a position to use morphine tablets,” said M S Rajendran, director of state drug control.Dr Sagar highlighted how people in Tirunelveli suffering from cancer have to travel all the way to Madurai or Chennai to get morphine tablets. “They have to be made available locally,” he said.At an orientation and consultation meeting on enhancing morphine utilisation in Tamil Nadu, experts studied ways to create awareness among the private institutions on the use of morphine tablets in cancer palliative care centre.Speaking at the event, Dr V Shanta rued the usage of terminologies like terminally ill or incurable diseases or dying patients for pallative care centres. She said pain relief for cancer patients has to be achieved as early as possible avoiding time gap besides stressing that the palliative care physician has to be aware of many facts of cancer management.