Pediatric Cancer Burden in Different Regions of India: Analysis of Published Data From 33 Population-Based Cancer Registries

Objective:To provide the regional pediatric cancer (age-group 0-14 years) burden and pattern in India utilizing published data of population-based cancer registries established under the National Cancer Registry Programme and Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai. Methods:Based on the geographic locations, the population-based cancer registries were categorized into six regions. The age-specific incidence rate was calculated using the number of pediatric cancer cases and population in the respective age-group. Age-standardized incidence rate per million and 95% CI were calculated.Results: In India, 2% of all cases were pediatric cancer. The agestandardized incidence rate (95% CI) for boys and girls is 95.1 (94.3-95.9) and 65.5 (64.8-66.2) per million population, respectively. Registries from northern India reported the highest rate; while the lowest rate was in northeastern India. Conclusion:There is a need to establish pediatric cancer registries in different regions of India to know the accurate pediatric cancer burden.

Prevalence of Underweight and its Risk Factors amongst Under-Five Children in a Rural Area of Varanasi District in Uttar Pradesh, India

Globally more than half of the under-five deaths are attributable to undernutrition. Under-nutrition is a major cause in more than half of under-five deaths. A community-based cross-sectional observational study was done in the rural area of Todarpur Village of Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh India, which is the field practice area of Rural Health Training Centre under the Department of Community Medicine, Heritage Institute of Medical Sciences. The study period was January-April 2018. The prevalence of underweight was lower in comparison to National and State-based prevalence. Most of the underweight children were infants, females, whose mother was illiterate and those who belong to lower socio-economic status and SCT/ST community. Therefore, this section of the society is the most vulnerable group for malnutrition and appropriate cost-effective strategies and intervention are needed to address the burden of malnutrition in this section of society.

Standardization of PCR-RFLP analysis of nsSNP rs1468384 of NPC1L1 gene.

Niemann-Pick C1-like 1 (NPC1L1) protein, a newly identified sterol influx transporter, located at the apical membrane of the enterocyte, which may actively facilitate the uptake of cholesterol by promoting the passage of sterols across the brush border membrane of the enterocyte. It effects intestinal cholesterol absorption and intracellular transport and as such is an integral part of complex process of cholesterol homeostasis. The study of population data for the distribution of these single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) of NPC1L1 has lead to the identification of six non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (nsSNP). The in vitro analysis using the software MuPro and StructureSNP shows that nsSNP M510I (rs1468384), which involves A→G base pair change leads to decrease in the stability of the protein. A reproducible and a cost-effective PCR-RFLP based assay was developed to screen for the SNP among population data. This SNP has been studied in Caucasian, Asian, and African American populations. Till date, no data is available on Indian population. The distribution of M510I NPC1L1 genotype was estimated in the North Western Indian Population as a test case. The allele distribution in Indian Population differs significantly from that of other populations. The methodology thus proved to be robust enough to bring out these differences.