Background: Cancer is becoming the most important public health burden around the globe. As per the GLOBOCAN 2008 estimates, about 12.7 million cancer cases and 7.6 million cancer deaths were estimated to have occurred in 2008. The burden of cancer cases for India in the year 2020 is calculated to be 1,148,757 (male 534,353; female 614,404) compared to 979,786 in 2010. The pattern of cancer incidence is varying among geographical regions, esophageal cancer for example being high in China, lung cancer in USA, and gallbladder cancer in Chile. The question remains why? Is it due to the diversity in genome pool, food habits, risk factor association and role of genetic susceptibility or some other factors associated with it? In India, the North East (NE)-India region is seeing a marked increase in cancer incidence and deaths, with a very different cancer incidence pattern compared to mainland India. The genome pool of the region is also quite distinct from the rest of India. Northeastern tribes are quite distinct from other groups; they are more closely related to East Asians than to other Indians. In this paper an attempt was made to see whether there is any similarity among the pattern of cancer incidence cases for different sites of NE-India region to South or East-Asia. Materials and Methods: Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA), Pearson Correlation coefficient test was assessed to evaluate the linkage of North-East India region to other regions. A p value <0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: The results clearly shows that there are similarities in occurrence of cancer incidence patterns for various cancer sites of NE-India with South and East-Asian regions, which may lead to the conclusion that there might be a genetic linkage between these regions.

Overall cancer incidence and mortality rates have increased since 2007.

Women's health issues have attained high concern in recent decades. Utmost efforts should be made to educate women in early cancer detection by creating awareness on risk factors and symptoms.

Background: Head and Neck cancers are basically squamous cell carcinomas. It is the fifth most common cancer and the sixth most common cause of cancer mortality in the world. Incidence of cancer as a whole for all sites is fourth highest in Kamrup Urban District (KUD) in males (AAR 185.2) and second highest (AAR 156.3) in females out of all Population Based Cancer Registries (PBCR) in India. Incidence of head and neck cancers in KUD is quite high both nationally and internationally. This retrospective study was carried out to assess the incidence pattern of head and neck cancers in Kamrup Urban District of Assam, India for the period of 2009-2011. Methods: Cancer is not notifiable in India, so method of collecting information on cancer was active in PBCR Guwahati. A total of 4416 cases were registered during the three years () of which 2508 were male and 1908 female. Statistical analysis used: Age Adjusted Rate (AAR), Crude Rate (CR) and Population pyramids are provided by NCRP-ICMR. Results: The relative proportion of head and neck cancers of total cancer cases registered in KUD constitutes 26% (654/2508) and 12% (225/1908) in male and female respectively. In males cancer of hypopharynx (AAR 14.7) was most common followed by tongue (AAR 9.4) and mouth (AAR 7.7). In females cancer of mouth (AAR 7.6) is most common followed by cancer of tongue (AAR 3.2). Conclusion: The pattern and incidence of various head and neck cancers is of utmost importance for primary prevention and early detection to adequately manage these cancers comprehensively in the community.

BACKGROUND To screen asymptomatic rural women for High Risk HPV DNA by CareHPV test and cytological screening by Papanicolaou (PAP) test. METHOD A total of Four hundred eighty (n=480) sexually active, non pregnant women in the age group of 20- 70 years were included in this study. Two cervical scrap samples were collected from enrolled eligible women, one scrap sample was used for HPV testing (CareHPV) and second for Papanicolaou (PAP) testing. Statistical analysis for testing outcome with demographic characteristics was analyzed using 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for different variables. P-values<.05 values were considered statistically significant. RESULTS Among tobacco chewing group of women compared to non-tobacco chewing women positivity rate for high risk HPV (p-0.001) and PAP test (p-0.007) was found to be statistically significant. Alcoholic beverage consuming women group has shown 28 times higher risk of high risk HPV infection (OR-28.3; p-0.0001) compared to non-alcoholic women. Irregular menstruation was found to be significant risk factor for PAP positivity (OR-14.33; p-0.001). High risk HPV infection (p-0.02) and PAP positivity (p-0.0001) was significantly higher in cloth sanitary pad user compared to commercial sanitary pad user. We also found that >3 numbers of childbirth as a significant risk factor for hr-HPV infection (p-0.0122). CONCLUSION We conclude that among rural women of Kamrup, North-East India alcohol consumption, tobacco chewing, cloth sanitary pad reuse , >3 child birth were significantly associated with increased risk of hr-HPV infection and PAP positivity.

Background: The global burden of cancer is continuously increasing. According to recent report of the National Cancer Registry Programme (NCRP) on time trends it is estimated that future burden of cancer cases for India in 2020 will be 1,320,928. It is well known that knowledge of the incidence of cancer is a fundamental requirement of rational planning and monitoring of cancer control programs. It would help health planners to formulate public health policy if relevant ethnic groups were considered. North East-India alone contains over 160 Scheduled Tribes and 400 other sub-tribal communities and groups, whose cancer incidence rates are high compared to mainland India. As since no previous study was done focusing on ethnicity, the present investigation was performed.

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