Cancer being predominantly a disease of old age and rich life style, its incidence is increasing as people are now living older and as more people are adopting urban life style. Compared to western and developed countries, the cancer incidence in India is still lower in general but in the large metropolises the rate and pattern has begun to resemble western world. The cancer incidence rate is lower in the rural population and the pattern is also somewhat different. In rural areas, people have more cancers of the types that are related to bad hygiene and chronic ill health, like oral cancers and uterine cervical cancers.
The highest incidence in cancer in India is reported from Mizoram in North East India , the cause of which can be linked to existence of three principal known causes of cancer, rich and heavily salted semi cooked diet and alcohol, bad personal hygiene, and genetic causes. The incidence rate i.e., the number of new cancers occurring in a geographical area in a year, is expressed statistically as the AAR (annual age adjusted rate) per one lakh of population, which means that if the AAR for say cancers in female in Kolkata is 114, then 114 new cancer cases will occur in every one lakh of women in Kolkata every year. From the table below one can have an idea about relative incidence in Kolkata and other major cities.