One in every 71 Taiwanese women who has a Pap smear was found to have pre-cancerous lesions or cancer, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday, as it urged women to be tested every three years.
Cervical cancer is the seventh-most common cancer among females in the country, with 1,700 women being diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer annually and 700 deaths per year.
Cervical cancer and pre-cancerous conditions can be detected by Pap smears, and early detection has been shown to help decrease the mortality rate by 60 percent to 90 percent, the agency said.
Since the government began promoting regular Pap smear tests in 1995, the death rate from cervical cancer has plunged by 60 percent, from 11 out of every 100,000 women in 1995 to 3.9 women last year, HPA said.
The tests showed that 11,000 women had precancerous lesions and nearly 5,000 had early-stage cervical cancer in 2012, indicating that one in every 71 women who underwent a Pap smear would be found to have either cell abnomalities or malignancies, it said.
That is why it is important for women to have a Pap smear every three years, it said.
Those who have not been screened for at least six years should make sure to be tested because the screening data analysis suggests that they are three times more likely to have premalignant conditions or cervical cancer than those who have had a Pap smear within three years, officials said.
One in every two woman who tests positive with a Pap smear is confirmed to have either pre-cancerous changes or cervical cancer, and women should who received abnormal test results should make sure they have follow-up checks, the agency said.
As much as 97.6 percent of the abnormalities detected by the screening are precancerous lesions or early stage cervical cancer, the survival rate of which is 97.4 percent at stage 0 and 84.1 percent at stage 1, the agency said.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) departed for Europe on Friday night, with planned stops in Lithuania and Denmark. Tsai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday night, but did not speak to reporters before departing. Tsai wrote on social media later that the purpose of the trip was to reaffirm the commitment of Taiwanese to working with democratic allies to promote regional security and stability, upholding freedom and democracy, and defending their homeland. She also expressed hope that through joint efforts, Taiwan and Europe would continue to be partners building up economic resilience on the global stage. The former president was to first
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
MORE NEEDED: Recall drives against legislators in Miaoli’s two districts and Hsinchu’s second district were still a few thousand signatures short of the second-stage threshold Campaigners aiming to recall Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators yesterday said they expect success in 30 out of 35 districts where drives have passed the second-stage threshold, which would mark a record number of recall votes held at once. Hsinchu County recall campaigners yesterday announced that they reached the second-stage threshold in the recall effort against Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘). A total of 26,414 signatures have been gathered over the past two months, surpassing the 10 percent threshold of 23,287 in Hsinchu County’s second electoral district, chief campaigner Hsieh Ting-ting (謝婷婷) said. “Our target is to gather an additional 1,500 signatures to reach
RSS