Cancer caused 5,56,400 deaths in the country in 2010 and 71 per cent of those who died were aged between 30 and 69 years, according to findings of the Million Death Study, one of the largest studies ever of premature mortality in India. Associate professor at Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, Dr Rajesh Dixit, along with other researchers detailed the findings of the research in a paper titled ‘Cancer mortality in India: a nationally representative survey’ which was published in the Lancet on Wednesday. According to the study, oral cancer was the most common fatal cancer in men with it causing 22.9 per cent deaths. Among women, cervical cancer continued to be the major killer (17.1 per cent). Tobacco was the biggest cause of cancer deaths. About 42 per cent of men who died had tobacco-related cancer. Among women, it was 18.3 per cent. “Tobacco-related cancers have been the leading cause of cancer deaths. It was seen that there were twice as many deaths from oral cancers than lung cancers. What is important is that the disease struck the working-age bracket of the population,” said Dixit. “India is obviously not doing enough in terms of taxation to control tobacco-related cancer,” said Dr Prabhat Jha, collaborator for the study and director, Centre for Global Health Research, Toronto. “Even in the last budget whatever increase happened would have accounted merely for inflation. Look at France. In the 1990s there was a national consumption of six cigarettes per person per day and when Jacques Chirac tripled it, the consumption halved. Lung cancer rates also came down within a few years.” An interesting observation was that there may be hidden agents of cancer that may explain the varying rates of incidence. “The varying mortalities are intriguing. For example, the northeastern part of the country has very high mortality whereas states immediately adjacent like Orissa, Bihar and Jharkhand have a quarter of that mortality, as does southern India. There could be genetic reasons, some circulating viruses or may be something in the diet but we do not know what. So there is a need for more research,” said Dr Jha.