Elderly and impoverished cancer patients need urgent help in India
Resumen
Dear Editor:
India leads the world in maximum cases of oral and throat cancer. Besides, 900,000 people are diagnosed with cancer each year and 50% of them are destined to die within the first year1. This letter presents new data on how a non-profit center called the Kailash Cancer Hospital in India (Goraj, Gujarat State) unusually providing cost-effective cancer treatment for the poor people. This model presented here has the potential to be replicated in other developing nations.
A total of 81 patients (54.3% females; 45.7% males) were treated for cancer from January 2008 to August 2009. More patients came from towns (55.6%) than villages (44.4%) showing increased awareness in urban areas. The patients’ occupation included farming (27.2%), followed by homemaking (21.0%), labor (14.8%), factory worker (14.8%), unemployed (8.6%), retired (3.7) and miscellaneous (driver, maid, tailor, priest, etc; 9.9%). The average age of patients (n=81) was 53.7 years (± 5.0, range 50-71) and 81.5% then between 50 to 59 years while 16.1% of them were aged 60 to 69 years. Only a few (2.4%) were above 70 years.
There was no gender bias in the cost of treatment between sexes (P>0.97, P>0.58, prospectively, t-test). The average cost of treatment was USD 582.7 (± 231.7, n=81, Table 1, range 177.1 -1458.3), which is four times cheaper than other hospitals. Radiotherapy was the most (77.8%) followed by surgery (12.3%) and chemotherapy (9.9%). The original bill and actual amount paid by patients differed significantly (Kruskal-Wallis test, p<0.05) among three treatment types and the poor received significant discount for treatment (Figure 1).
