Pakistan, Oct. 9 -- Ask a family in Balochistan what a cancer diagnosis means, and the answer often begins with a map. Before they think about chemotherapy schedules or survival rates, they think about how far they will have to go.

Balochistan is Pakistan's largest province by area, with communities spread across long, difficult terrain. For a disease that demands months of coordinated care, distance is part of the illness.

A multi-year study published in the Journal of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan looked at 16,342 tissue biopsy specimens from Balochistan between 2021 and 2024. Of these, 5,145, or 31.5 per cent, were confirmed as malignant. Men accounted for 52 per cent of those cases and women for 48 per cent.

These...