Head and neck cancers are considered to be the most common cancers in developing countries, especially in Southeast Asia. In India, it accounts for one-fourth of male cancers and one-tenth of female cancers. An attempt was made to study head and neck cancer trends in the Dibrugarh district of Assam, North-East India, India. All sites viz., oral cavity and mobile tongue, oropharynx, hypopharynx, larynx, nasopharynx and others were considered separately for both the sexes to carry out the present analysis. Using the data from the Population-Based Cancer Registry, Upper Assam, Dibrugarh, annual crude incidence rate and age-specific rate were calculated for the period from 2003 to 2016. Mann-Kendall and Sen's Slope non-parametric analysis were applied to examine the trend in the percentages of Head and Neck cancers. The most frequent incidence site for HN cancers was the hypopharynx (33.50%). The disease was common among the males (78.87%) compared to the female (21.13%) population in Dibrugarh district. HN cancers are more prone to the age group 50-70 years (60.93%) compared to the individuals with less than 50 years (26.51%). Combining all the sites of HN cancers in male showed a significant decrease in incidence, whereas in female increasing trend was noted over a period of time. A slight decline in the percentage of head and neck cancer was documented in Dibrugarh when we combined both sexes. The results obtained from the current investigation will laid the scientific framework for proper planning and organization of prevention, diagnosis and treatment of HN cancers in Dibrugarh district, Assam.
Keywords: Crude rate; Head and Neck cancers; Mann-Kendell; Sen’s Slope.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Indian Association of Surgical Oncology 2024. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.