Current Status and Prospective Of Cancer Disease in Bangladesh: A Cross-Sectional Survey

A survey was performed from July 2012 through September 2012 on randomly selected cancer patients at three well-known hospitals in Dhaka city, Bangladesh, by the help of a structured questionnaire. A total of 60 patients, 27 male and 33 female were involved in this study with the ratio of 1:1.2.Cancer prevalence was much noticeable in middle to old age where lung and stomach cancers stood in the top level (37.04%), followed by thyroid cancer (25.93%), sarcoma (14.81%), male genital tract cancer (7.41%), eye cancer (7.41%), duodenum cancer (3.7%) and rectum cancer (3.7%) in male. In female patients, ovary cancer ranked the top (39.39%), followed by breast cancer (27.27%), rectum cancer (18.18%) and duodenum cancer (9.09%). This survey reflected that the primary and foremost means of cancer treatment in Bangladesh are surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy which can be used alone or in combination. From this study we found that, 60% of cancer cases were being treated with chemotherapy alone and 20% cases with the combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Only a limited number of pharmaceutical companies manufacture anticancer drugs in Bangladesh and many of the required anticancer drugs are imported.