Cancers of head and neck account for 30-40 per cent of all cancers in males and 11-16 per cent of all sites in females in India, specialists have said.

Annually over 200,000 cases of head and neck cancers occur in India out of which almost 80,000 are oral cancers, Dr. PN Mohapatra, Senior Trustee, West Bengal Head And Neck Society, told the media recently at the launch of West Bengal Head And Neck Society.
"Even though maximum numbers of mouth cancers in males is seen after the age of 55 there is an alarming trend towards younger patient population," he said.

In India the high incidence of head and neck cancers is compounded by the fact that there are only about 200-300 trained head and neck oncologists, the bulk of them in the six major cities, Dr. Sukrit Bose, Secretary, West Bengal Head and Neck Society, said.
Tobacco (both smoking and chewing tobacco with or without betel quid) remains the number one lifestyle behavior responsible for the persistent high incidence of oral and pharyngeal cancers, the doctors informed.

Malignancy of the Thyroid Gland in all age groups is rising at an alarming trend in India. India stands second place in prevalence of esophageal cancer after China, they added. "Although there have been some attempts by the government to decrease the use of tobacco, given the magnitude of the problem, much more is needed to be done to significantly impact on the reduction in the incidence of head and neck cancers in the country," Dr Mohapatra said.

According to Dr. Aniruddha Dam, President, West Bengal Head And Neck Society, the major shortcoming in the management of head and neck cancers in India is that most efforts usually focus on tertiary care with no proper early detection programmes or follow-up programme of those treated.

"Most of the guidelines followed by Oncologists are those from the western literature, whereas the disease may be biologically different in our country. Moreover our patient population may be different in terms of tolerability and availability of resources to implement guidelines that come from overseas," Dr Dam pointed out. The panel of doctors at the launch of the West Bengal Head And Neck Society said lack of physician awareness, proper training and non-availability of diagnostic tools is more to blame than the illiteracy and poverty among head and neck cancer patients.