Cancer Risk: 25% Users In Assam Attempt To Quit Tobacco

GUWAHATI: Only 25 percent of tobacco users in Assam have attempted to quit their habit. The alarming development has come at a time when Assam is topping the chart of cancer incidence in the country. The prime reason for the very high incidence of cancer cases in the State is tobacco chewing and smoking.

The latest study conducted by health researchers at the International Institute of Population Sciences, Mumbai, has found that only 25 percent of tobacco users attempted giving up the habit in Assam along with West Bengal and Jharkhand.

Even though the use of tobacco is causing cancer in a very large magnitude in Assam, the study has found that very few doctors in the State give advice to their patients to quit tobacco chewing and smoking.

The study found that only 51 percent of a nationwide sample of 16,484 tobacco users received quit advice during visits to their healthcare providers, although the National Tobacco Control Guidelines recommend that doctors should ask all users to do so.

The proportions of tobacco users advised to quit ranged from under 35 percent in Assam, Bengal, Haryana, Jharkhand and Punjab to under 45 percent in Kerala, Karnataka, and Maharashtra. Himachal Pradesh was the only state where over 65 percent of tobacco users received quit advice.

A doctor at B. Borooah Cancer Institute while terming the findings of the study “very alarming,” said the rising graph of cancer in Assam will not slide unless the number of tobacco users is reduced.

“Among other anti-tobacco measures, quit advice from doctors is an influential intervention in efforts to curb consumption as their recommendations are considered vital and trustworthy,” the doctor said.

Many doctors do not always ask every patient whether he or she is a tobacco user. “Whether a person is in for fever, knee-pain, liver ailment or any other diseases, doctors have to ask about tobacco use and recommend quitting,” a doctor at Gauhati Medical College & Hospital said.

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