Observing the International Childhood Cancer Awareness Day on Beach Road in Puducherry, Jipmer Director S.C.Parija flagged off a rally from Gandhi statue to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Manimandapam.
The Department of Medical Oncology, Regional Cancer Centre, Jipmer, in collaboration with NGOs – Jiv Divya Foundation and Can Kids observed the International Childhood Cancer Awareness Day.
Dr. Dubashi Biswajit, HoD, Department of Medical Oncology, said the survival of childhood cancer at Jipmer is around 50%, against over 70% in western countries. “The reasons for the poor outcome are lack of awareness, difficulty in accessing healthcare, treatment refusal, abandonment and non-centralisation of treatment,” he said.
1.1% rise every year
India accounts for 20% of all childhood cancers of the world and in India, childhood cancer forms 1.6% to 4.8% of all cancers.
“There is an increase of 1.1% every year. Leukemia, Lymphoma and CNS tumour are the common childhood cancers seen at Jipmer,” he added.
Dr. Biswajit underlined that the rate of abandonment, which means discontinuation of treatment, has decreased from 20-25% to 10% since the start of registry. “Resident doctors and medical social workers have played a significant role in reducing treatment abandonment with rigorous counselling, arranging financial and logistic support and regular check on follow up treatment,” he said.
All the participants were taken to Aayi Mandapam where cultural programmes and interaction with cancer survivors were organised.
