Patterns of Cancer Incidence and Mortality in North- Eastern India: The First Report from the Population Based Cancer Registry of Tripura.

BACKGROUND: There is, till date no population-based data regarding cancer patterns in North- Eastern India, dictating the need to understand the epidemiology of cancer in this population for its effective management. METHODS: This is the first report of the Population Based Cancer Registry (PBCR) in Tripura (2010-2014). The protocol involves active collection of data on all cancer cases from Tripura through staff visit in more than 150 sources of incident and mortality registration, government and private hospitals, municipal corporation, etc. and scrutiny, corroboration with existing records. Data was analyzed statistically to understand cancer trends in terms of incidence and mortality across different sites, age groups affected and gender. RESULTS: A total of 10,251 cases were registered during the period, with overall age-adjusted incidence rates of 75.7 and 54.9 per 100,000 males and females respectively. Crude Incidence Rate (CR) and Age- Adjusted Rate (AAR) was among the lowest reported in India, probably due to associated socio-economic factors. The most prevalent cancers were lung (18.1%), esophageal (8.3%) for men and cervix uteri (17.6%), breast (13.8%) for females. Gall bladder cancer in females was one of the highest in the country. Rate of cancer mortality in the population was quite high and significantly increased with time, probably accounting for dearth in early detection and feasible treatment alternatives. CONCLUSION: The data suggests that high cancer incidence and mortality are prevalent in the population of Tripura, dictating the need of active tobacco control measures, early detection and awareness drives for effective cancer control.

Designing of Ground-Truth-Annotated DBT-TU-JU Breast Thermogram Database Toward Early Abnormality Prediction.

The advancement of research in a specific area of clinical diagnosis crucially depends on the availability and quality of the radiology and other test related databases accompanied by ground truth and additional necessary medical findings. This paper describes the creation of the Department of Biotechnology-Tripura University-Jadavpur University (DBT-TU-JU) breast thermogram database. The objective of creating the DBT-TU-JU database is to provide a breast thermogram database that is annotated with the ground-truth images of the suspicious regions. Along with the result of breast thermography, the database comprises of the results of other breast imaging methodologies. A standard breast thermogram acquisition protocol suite comprising of several critical factors has been designed for the collection of breast thermograms. Currently, the DBT-TU-JU database contains 1100 breast thermograms of 100 subjects. Due to the necessity of evaluating any breast abnormality detection system, this study emphasizes the generation of the ground-truth images of the hotspot areas, whose presence in a breast thermogram signifies the presence of breast abnormality. With the generated ground-truth images, we compared the results of six state-of-the-art image segmentation methods using five supervised evaluation metrics to identify the proficient segmentation methods for hotspot extraction. Based on the evaluation results, the fractional-order Darwinian particle swarm optimization, region growing, mean shift, and fuzzy c-means clustering are found to be more efficient in comparison to k-means clustering and threshold-based segmentation methods.

Analytical Study of Short- and Long-term Results of Home-based Palliative Care Services to Cancer Patients.

AIMS AND OBJECT: Identification and selection of patients suffering from terminal stage in bed ridden condition upto village level and to determine the type of palliative care need. Also to asses the effectiveness of the palliative care provided at the bed side. MATERIALS: All registered patients under palliative care of Regional Cancer Centre, Agartala from 2014 April to 2016 March. METHODS: A retrospective study. Ten teams comprising of doctors, nurses, pharmacists & Social Workers were trained and engaged in this study for symptom assessment and pain relief of palliative patients. RESULTS: It is highly beneficial for the bed ridden & home bound cancer patients with improved quality of life due to regular home visits and medicine distribution by trained medical personnel. Short term benefits in symptom like pain, nausea & vomiting, retention of urine, constipation, bloating, fever etc. was dramatic after medication by palliative team. Patients also get relief as a result of repeated visit of palliative care team. CONCLUSION: Home based palliative care is beneficial for the bed ridden and home bound chronically ill patients including cancer patients. Bed ridden patients should be cared by palliative care team at least in every week.