PANAJI
The South Goa district, comprising seven talukas, reported an average of 4.4 daily cases related to chronic kidney disease and cancer over the past three years. Overall, the district recorded 4,890 cases, including 2,924 cancer cases and 1,966 chronic kidney disease cases, between 2022“23 and 2024“25.
As per the data tabled on the Floor of the House by Health Minister Vishwajit Rane, Salcete taluka leads with 661 chronic kidney and 674 cancer cases as reported across various health centres and Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMC).
This is followed by Mormugao taluka, who has reported altogether 944 cases that includes 580 cancer related cases and another 364 of chronic kidney disease. The Quepem taluka has also got nearly 857 cancer cases and another 268 kidney cases, totalling it to 855.
Ponda taluka, with 721 cases is at the fourth position. It has for 530 cancer cases and 191 chronic kidney cases in the last three years. This is followed by Canacona who has around 565 cases comprising 288 cancer and 277 that of chronic kidney.
With 265 cancer and 122 kidney cases, Sanguem reported a total of 387 patients. On the other hand, Dharbandora has reported 83 cases of chronic kidney failure with no data on cancer patients.
While no study has been undertaken pertaining to cancer across Goa, the GMC held two hospital based studies through the department of Nephrology and Community medicine on Kidney.
“Both the studies have identified diabetes and hypertension as the leading causative factors for chronic kidney disease among the hospitalized patients,” Rane told the House.
A hospital-based study included 345 patients including 131 patients (38%) from South Goa district and 214 patients (62%) from North Goa in the study.
“More than half of chronic kidney disease cases were attributable to Diabetes mellitus (51%) across the state of Goa like other parts of the country, followed by other causes such as hypertension, chronic glomerulonephritis, chronic interstitial nephritis, kidney stone disease, use of analgesic medicines etc,” the Minister said.
In South Goa district, it was noted that Diabetes Mellitus accounted for nearly 39% of kidney diseases, followed by glomerulonephritis (26%) and interstitial nephritis (26%) and of these 26% cases of interstitial nephritis, chronic kidney disease of unknown origin (CKDu) accounted for 22% of cases.
CKDu was mainly seen in South Goa district with 29 patients, of which 22 patients were from Canacona Taluka, 3 from Quepem and 2 each from Salcete and Sanguem Talukas. There were 6 patients with CKDu from North Goa.
The research study was titled as “Epidemiological Profile of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD): A Single-Centre Hospital-Based Study in Goa”.
Rane said that the Goa University in collaboration with GMC has set up a Task Force to investigate the risk factors for chronic kidney cases origin at Canacona. The Task force is headed by vice chancellor.
