by Playfuls Staff |
22nd April 2007
Countries were urged on Sunday to take steps to avert cancers which are preventable or the number of new cases in Asia will soar by more than half to 7 million by [more] 2020.
Smoking has been shown to lead to more than a dozen different types of cancers, including lung, stomach, kidney, pancreas and bladder, doctors stressed.
More than 400 physicians and experts were in Singapore attending the first Lancet Medical Forum on Cancer Management in Asia. Doctors, researchers and government officials focused on how to provide more efficient care.
One in three deaths of adults between 35 and 69 years old in the United States was due to smoking in 1990, said Jacques Ferlay, with the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization.
He predicted that by 2030, China's smoking patterns would result in the same proportion of deaths from tobacco.
Smoking is the most "important and preventable" cause of cancer worldwide, he noted.
Research has also shown strong links between some infections with cancers, such as the Hepatitis B virus and liver cancer, Ferlay said.
Infections account for 89 per cent of cancers of the cervix and vulva, 83 per cent of liver cancer and 54 per cent of stomach cancers.
Im stressing that many types of the disease can be prevented by lifestyle changes, Dr Kazuo Tajima from Japan's Aichi Cancer Centre Research Institute said rich foods are responsible for 20 to 30 per cent of colorectal and breast cancers, while salt is the major culprit of stomach cancer.
Developing countries in Asia and Africa with limited access to the treatment technology available in developing countries face a bleak scenario, experts said. With ageing populations, they may account for more than half of the world's cancer cases by 2020, they warned.
Singapore's Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan, who opened the two-day forum on Saturday, touched on the high cost of some cancer treatments.
He acknowledged that drug companies need to recoup the hundreds of millions of dollars they spend in developing new cures.
It is difficult for governments "to defend attaching a dollar value to life, no matter how short," he said.
He urged physicians and scientists to find creative solutions to cancer management.
© 2007 DPA
