Chandigarh: At 90 cancer patients for every one lakh population, Punjab has a higher cancer rate than the country’s. The Malwa region in that state has the highest average of 136 cancer patients per 1 lakh people, according to a Punjab government study released on Monday.

The national average is 80 cancer cases per lakh population. Data over the past five years show that on an average, 18 people die of cancer each day. There are 23,874 cancer patients in Punjab with 33,318 cancer-related deaths in last five years.