The Socio-Cultural Factors behind the Rare Incidence of Cancers in Perumal Thevanpatti (Virudu Nagar District, Tamil Nadu)

The nationwide cancer registration and systematic death registration is poor particularly, in rural India. It is just about1% of the total registry. Based on the people's report, a house -to- house survey was conducted in Perumal Thevan Patti, a small village in Virudunagar district in Tamil Nadu to identify the number of existing cancer cases, and the number of cancer deaths that occurred in that village. Cancers of breast, uterus, stomach and rectum are found to be more prevalent in this village cohort of population. As multiple factors are responsible for significantly higher prevalence of cancers in this village, counselling strategies may be adopted to discourage the indiscriminate use of pesticides, tobacco chewing and alcohol consumption for preventing cancer in this area. A cancer registry should be maintained for elucidation of the role of pesticides and other pro carcinogenic factors in the etiology of cancer.