A new case of cancer occurs every nine minutes in Taiwan, according to the latest information released by the Department of Health's Cancer Registry.
More than 59,000 new cases of cancer were added to the registry in 2000, up by about 2,800 from the previous year, the report showed.
The figure translates into 273 cases of cancer per 100,000 men, and 241 per 100,000 women.
For men, the five most commonly diagnosed cancers were liver, lung and respiratory, colon, oral and stomach cancer.
Cervical, breast, colon, liver, and lung and respiratory were the top five types of cancer for women.
The median cancer age was 58 for women and 65 for men, the report said.
In addition, the registry pointed out that while 57 percent of female cancer patients survived five years beyond the initial diagnosis, only 32 percent of male patients were able to live that long.
The department's Bureau of Health Promotion released the statistics at a press conference outlining a new five-year cancer prevention plan.
The plan targets problem areas exposed by the registry's data.
In an effort to bring down the incidence of cancer, the plan will target cancers that became more commonly diagnosed between 1996 and 2000.
In that five-year period, prostate, oral, liver and colon cancer all increased by more than 25 percent in men.
For women, the incidence of liver, breast and cervical cancer increased by the same percentage.
In response to these figures, health authorities are planning to focus on raising public awareness of the health risk posed by chewing betel nuts and smoking.
Hepatitis B and C patients and carriers would also be the subject of renewed attention.
"In the US, there has been a significant drop in the number of new cases of lung, colon, and cervical cancer. The lung cancer figure indicates that anti-smoking policies in the US have been successful," said Minister of Health Chen Chien-jen (
"In Taiwan, however, we've seen a 12.41 percent increase in lung cancer in men and 13.76 percent in women. This goes to show that we need to enforce more stringent anti-smoking policies," Chen said.
"The increased incidence of both breast and cervical cancer is associated with Western influences on the traditional diet. Experts also point to the earlier start of menstruation as a possible cause," he said.
"As for oral cancer, including esophageal and nasal cancer, it is much more common among men than women in Taiwan," he said.
"These forms of cancer are especially common forms of cancer in Taiwan," he said.
He added that tobacco and betel nuts were responsible for the high incidence of oral cancer in men.
The department also aims to streamline cancer research that is being undertaken in different sectors.
The department would also train more health personnel and set up a comprehensive information database.
The department estimated that close to 90 percent of all cancer cases are now included in the registry.
This figure was up from 85 percent in 1996.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the