In its first-ever report on child cancer rates, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) last week revealed that 542 people under 18 years old were in 2018 diagnosed with cancer, the equivalent of nearly 1.5 every day.
While boys were more likely to develop cancer at 308 cases to 234 among girls, leukemia was the most common type for both groups, comprising 30 percent of new diagnoses, the report showed.
The next most-common types were lymphoma, germ cell tumors, central nervous system tumors and carcinoma.
However, children have a better five-year survival rate than adults at 80 percent to about 60 percent, HPA Cancer Prevention and Control Division director Lin Li-ju (林莉茹) said.
Children are better able to withstand chemotherapy and have higher cell regeneration capacity, she said, adding that advances in supportive therapies have also helped.
Not every type of unexplained childhood cancer is hereditary, Childhood Cancer Foundation chairman Lin Dong-tsamn (林東燦) said, adding that just because a parent had leukemia does not mean their child will as well.
Cancer in children has over the past few years been diagnosed at an increasingly early stage, he said.
As parents have fewer children, they are paying more attention to their health, resulting in earlier discovery, he said.
There have also been cases of colorectal cancer among six-year-olds and nasopharynx cancer among children as young as five years for reasons that are still unknown to doctors, he added.
Since children are often unable to effectively communicate how they feel, their caregivers must pay close attention to potential symptoms, HPA Acting Director-General Chia Shu-li (賈淑麗) said.
To help caregivers recognize these symptoms, the HPA detailed a number of warning signs to look out for.
The signs include a fever of unknown origin that lasts more than a week; bruising; nosebleeds or mucosal bleeding; unspecified swelling in the lymph nodes, neck, groin or armpit; suspicious lumps; and pain of unknown origin, the HPA said.
The agency also recommended keeping watch for signs of a nervous system disorder, such as vomiting, diplopia, weakness and motor incoordination; unusual white reflection in the pupil; unexplained weight loss; and pale complexion.
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
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
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