The department of Radiation Oncology under the S K Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), has been granted Project of Population Based Cancer Registry (PBCR), funded by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which will help at large scale to establish cancer incidence in the valley.

This is in addition to the existing Hospital Based Cancer Registry (HBCR), affiliated to National Cancer Registry Programme (NCRP), Bangalore and data pertaining to all cancer patients since 2011 has been transferred online to NCRP. Director of SKIMS Omar Javed Shah said the availability of Cancer facilities was their major focus area. ''The ICMR-funded Population based registry will be useful in establishing cancer incidence and the department of Radiation Oncology will make optimum use of the project and the data generated will go in a long way to helping researchers and oncologists at the National and International level,'' a Spokesperson of the SKIMS said.

Head of the Department (HOD), Radiation Oncology Dr Maqbool Lone and Principal Investigator of the Project said this was a first of its kind project in Kashmir Valley. The state of Jammu and Kashmir is witnessing unprecedented increase of cancer and this Population Based Cancer Registry, in addition to Hospital Based Registry, will give a fair idea of cancer incidences, he added.