Cancer last year remained the leading cause of death in Taipei for the 47th consecutive year, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday.
A total of 18,050 Taipei residents died last year, up 2.4 percent from the previous year, the department’s statistics office director Shen Chung-hsien (沈忠憲) said, adding that the average age of death was 76.4, slightly higher than the average of 73 nationwide.
The standardized mortality rate in the city was 317.6 deaths per 100,000 people, 1.4 percent lower than the average rate over the past decade, and lower than the national standardized mortality of 415 deaths last year, he said.
About 78 percent of the deaths in Taipei were caused by the 10 leading causes of death — 29 percent due to cancer (malignant tumor) and 64.3 percent due to seven types of chronic diseases.
The top 10 causes were cancer, heart disease (16.6 percent), pneumonia (9 percent), cerebrovascular disease (6.4 percent), diabetes (3.8 percent), nephritis and kidney disease (3.4 percent), chronic lower respiratory disease (2.8 percent), accidental injury (2.5 percent), sepsis (2.5 percent) and hypertensive diseases (2.1 percent).
Shen said that 5,238 city residents died of cancer last year, an average of 14.4 deaths per day due to cancer.
The five leading causes of death from cancer were trachea and bronchial tumors and lung cancer, followed by colorectal and anal cancer, cholangiocarcinoma and liver cancer, female breast cancer and prostate cancer, he said.
Cancer has been the leading cause of death nationwide for 37 consecutive years, so the department urges people to maintain a healthy and balanced diet, exercise regularly and maintain a healthy weight, avoid smoking or chewing betel nuts, and make regular use of the nation’s cancer screening programs, Shen said.
Lung cancer is the deadliest cancer for both genders in Taipei due to air pollution, Taipei City Hospital’s Renai Branch digestive disease physician Chen Kuan-yang (陳冠仰) said.
Men were believed more likely to develop lung cancer due to a higher prevalence of smoking, but studies have found that the incidence of lung cancer in women was not significantly lower, because many women are exposed to cooking fumes, Chen added.
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