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More Taiwanese Suffer from Cancer
The incidence of cancer is on the rise in Taiwan, with almost 47,000 people having contracted the disease in 1997 alone, a Taiwanese newspaper reported.
The English newspaper Taipei Times Friday cited the local health authorities as saying that one person contracted cancer every 11 minutes and 17 seconds in Taiwan.
Cancer has been the island's biggest killer since 1982 and nearly 30,000 people have died of the disease annually since 1997,the newspaper said.
The standardized cancer incidence rate among men was higher than that among women and the survival rate was higher among women, it said. Reasons cited for the higher incidence rate among men included their higher propensity for drinking alcohol, smoking and betel nut chewing.
Cervical and breast cancers were the two most widely contracted cancers among women, it said. The figures show women around the age of 40 to be particularly susceptible to breast cancer.
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