Title

Opportunistic screening for oral, breast and cervical cancer among vulnerable urban patients: A cross sectional descriptive study

Authors

Shashi Rakheja, Indu Aggarwal, Dishti Sharma*, Harmeet Goel, Priyanka Aggarwal & Avinash Chandra

Affiliation

Department of Preventive Oncology, Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Center, Delhi, India; *Corresponding author

Email

Shashi Rakheja - E-mail: rakheja.shashi@rgcirc.org
Indu Aggarwal - E-mail: aggarwal.indu@rgcirc.org
Dishti Sharma - E-mail: dishtisharmaa@gmail.com
Harmeet Goel - E-mail: goel.harmeet@rgcirc.org
Priyanka Aggarwal - E-mail: paggarwal11221@gmail.com
Avinash Chandra - E-mail: avinashchandra68@gmail.com

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received September 1, 2026; Revised September 30, 2026; Accepted September 30, 2026, Published September 30, 2026

Abstract

Oral, breast and cervical cancers remain major public health concerns in India, yet screening access is limited in vulnerable urban populations. Therefore, it is of interest to evaluate the opportunistic screening among 50 adults attending a primary care facility using oral examination, clinical breast examination and visual inspection with acetic acid. Oral examination was performed in 36 (72.0%) patients, clinical breast examination in 13 (26.0%), visual inspection with acetic acid in 11 (22.0%) and 10 (20.0%) received multiple screening tests. Suspicious oral lesions were identified in 3 (6.0%) male tobacco and/or alcohol users, but no diagnosis was confirmed because of incomplete follow-up. Thus, opportunistic screening is feasible in vulnerable urban populations, although strengthening post-screening follow-up is essential to improve early cancer detection.

Keywords

Opportunistic screening, oral cancer, breast cancer, cervical cancer, primary health care, urban slum, migrant health, loss to follow-up, vulnerable populations

Citation

Rakheja et al. Bioinformation 22(9): 5950-5953 (2026)

Edited by

Ruby Singh

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.