Cervical cancer is among the top 10 most common cancers in women, a physician at Taipei City Hospital said, adding that studies have shown that Pap smear tests can greatly reduce the incidence of and death rates from cervical cancer.
Data from the Health Promotion Administration showed that cervical cancer is the sixth-most common cancer in Taiwanese women, with a prevalence of 10 to 15 women per 100,000 and a death rate of three to five per 100,000.
Hsieh Hui-Ting (謝惠婷), a family doctor at the hospital’s Kunming Branch, said that in 2014, a total of 1,567 women in Taiwan were diagnosed with cervical cancer and 640 died of the disease, so it is a disease that should not be neglected.
“Cervical cancer is one of the few types of cancers that can be detected at an early stage, by simply taking a pap smear test,” she said.
Local and foreign studies have shown that conducting large-scale cervical cancer screening programs can significantly reduce the incidence and death from the disease, she said.
The National Health Insurance Program began providing free annual Pap tests for women older than 30 in 1995 and the death rate from the disease dropped 50 percent, Hsieh said.
However, the participation rate in such tests in Taiwan is still relatively low at about 30 percent.
The National Health Research Institutes recommends that women should begin to get Pap tests within three years after they become sexually active and if tests results are normal for three consecutive times, they can consider extending the interval to once every two to three years, she said.
However, women who fall into the high-risk category — previously detected human papillomavirus exposure, a prior history of cervical cancer or cervical intraepithelial neoplasia or other sexually transmitted diseases, multiple sexual partners or who smoke — should take Pap tests every year, she added.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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