Record number of people diagnosed with cancer in Taiwan

CNA
April 15, 2015, 12:00 am TWN


TAIPEI--One person was diagnosed with cancer in Taiwan every 5 minutes and 26 seconds in 2012, a new record that was 14 seconds faster than the previous year, according to cancer statistics released by the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) on Tuesday.
... he most common cancers in Taiwan are colon, lung, liver, breast and oral cancers, followed by prostate, gastric, skin, thyroid and esophageal cancers, the new statistics showed.
Colon cancer topped the list for the seventh year in a row, with the number of patients diagnosed with colon cancer in 2012 up 6 percent from a year earlier to 14,965. It was the fastest growing of any of the cancers in the HPA report.
A total of 11,692 were diagnosed with lung cancer in 2012, 6 percent more than in the previous year. But the growth in new lung cancer cases was particularly notable among women at 11 percent.
Although the number of smokers in Taiwan has fallen dramatically since the implementation of the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act in September 1997, the problem of secondhand smoke should not be underestimated, the HPA said....