One person was diagnosed with cancer every 8.4 minutes on average in Taiwan in 2003, compared with 8.5 minutes in 2001 and nine minutes in 2000, a report released yesterday by the Department of Health (DOH) showed.
The 2003 figures were calculated based on the number of cancer cases at 212 hospitals around the country with at least 50 beds.
There were 250.77 cancer patients out of every 100,000 people in Taiwan in 2003, with liver cancer and breast cancer the most common types of cancer among men and women, respectively, the report showed.
It was found that the 10 most common types of cancer among men were, in order of prevalence: liver cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, oral cancer, stomach cancer, prostate cancer, bladder cancer, esophagus cancer, pharyngeal cancer and skin cancer.
Among women, the 10 most common kinds of cancer were breast cancer, colon cancer, liver cancer, lung cancer, cervical cancer, stomach cancer, thyroid cancer, ovarian cancer, uterine cancer, and skin cancer.
Chao Kun-yu (
While there were 288.98 male cancer patients out of every 100,000 men, 212.02 cancer cases were registered for every 100,000 women, Chao said.
With the promotion of smear tests by public health officials around the country, the occurrence rate of cervical cancer in women has dropped by roughly 37 percent over the past five years, Chao said.
However, occurrence rates of oral cancer and esophagus cancer in men increased by 20 percent, mainly as a result of smoking, alcohol consumption and betel nut chewing, Chao added.
Since cancer tops Taiwan's list of 10 major causes of death, Chao called for the public to form the habit of undergoing regular cancer screening tests, adding that "an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of treatment."
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater