Cancer Rates Skyrocket in Asia
Pastor Dale Morgan
Cancer Rates Skyrocket in Asia*
By MARGIE MASON
The Associated Press
Wednesday, May 30, 2007; 1:03 PM
SINGAPORE -- Asia is bracing for a dramatic surge in cancer rates over
the next decade as people in the developing world live longer and adopt
bad Western habits that greatly increase the risk of the disease.
Smoking, drinking and eating unhealthy foods _ all linked to various
cancers _ will combine with larger populations and fewer deaths from
infectious diseases to drive Asian cancer rates up 60 percent by 2020,
some experts predict.
But unlike in wealthy countries where the world's top medical care is
found, there will likely be no prevention or treatment for many living
in poor countries.
"What happened in the Western world in the '60s or '70s will happen here
in the next 10 to 20 years as life expectancy gets longer and we get
better control on more common causes of deaths," said Dr. Jatin P. Shah,
a professor of surgery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New
York, who attended a cancer conference last month in Singapore.
"The habit of alcohol consumption, smoking and dietary changes will
increase the risk of Western world cancers to the Eastern world," Shah said.
An estimated 40 percent of cancers worldwide can be prevented by
exercise, eating healthy foods and not using tobacco, according to the
World Health Organization.
But more people in Asia are moving into cities and becoming overweight
and obese from inactivity. They are replacing fruits and vegetables with
fatty meals full of meat and salt, which is leading to increases in
stomach and colon cancers. Meanwhile, traditional diseases like malaria
are killing fewer people _ building an aging population that's a prime
target for cancer.
The effect is already startling, with the Asia-Pacific making up about
half of the world's cancer deaths and logging 4.9 million new cases, or
45 percent, of the global toll in 2002.
That number is projected to leap to 7.8 million by 2020 if nothing
changes, according to Dr. Donald Max Parkin, a research fellow at the
University of Oxford who is a leading authority on global cancer
patterns and trends.
China alone, with its booming economy and 1.3 billion people, is home to
about one-fifth of the world's new cases, compared to about 13 percent
in the U.S. and 26 percent in Europe, Parkin said. Heart disease remains
the top killer in China, but cancer is a close second.
Cancer deaths are slowly dropping in the United States, with slight
declines recorded in 2003 and 2004. A decrease in smoking, coupled with
early detection and better treatment of tumors is credited with the
positive results _ the first U.S. decline in cancer deaths since 1930.
Smoking is on the rise in Asia, where it's common to see people lighting
up in airports, restaurants and even hospitals. Lung cancer makes up the
bulk of all cases regionwide, followed by stomach and liver cancers. It
also remains the biggest cancer killer worldwide.
"Lung cancer is the big one because of cigarette smoking. There are many
tobacco advertisements _ everywhere," said Dr. You-Lin Qiao from the
Cancer Institute and Hospital in Beijing, who added that the odds are
stacked against those diagnosed in China. "No matter if you're rich or
poor, if you get lung cancer you die. There's no treatment at all."
While Americans and Europeans have been abandoning smoking, an estimated
300 million men are puffing away in China _ equal to the entire U.S.
population. If nothing changes, a third of Chinese men under age 30 are
predicted to die from tobacco, with lung cancer already the biggest
cancer killer there.
Smokeless tobacco is also a big problem in Asia's other giant, India,
where many men and women chew some form of tobacco. Mouth cancer makes
up half of all new cases in parts of the country.
A lack of vaccines that prevent cancer-causing viruses is another
obstacle for Asia, which is home to about three-quarters of the world's
liver cancers, caused largely by Hepatitis B infections.
A vaccine guarding against the virus has been available since the early
1980s and is routinely given to children in Western countries, but it is
still not reaching large swaths of the Asia-Pacific.
Some experts worry it could take years before the new vaccine for the
sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, or HPV, is available to women
in developing countries. The three shots currently cost about $350 in
the U.S. and are 70 percent effective against preventing HPV, the main
cause of cervical cancer. It is already the No. 2 cause of cancer among
women in Asia, after breast cancer.
"The problem is so huge that it's very difficult for us to know where to
start," said Dr. Franco Cavalli, president of the nonprofit
International Union Against Cancer. "All the new cancer treatments are
so expensive, that already in the affluent countries we are not able to
pay for them. ... So imagine what that means for low-income countries
where you have $20 a year per person for health expenditures."
Regular screening, such as Pap smears and mammograms, is too costly for
many poor countries. Treatment with radiation or chemotherapy is
unfathomable for most. And in Asia, many patients seek help from
hospitals in the late stages of disease after traditional medicine has
failed to cure them.
Monika Bardhan of Malaysia's NCI Cancer Hospital has seen a dramatic
increase in cancer patients over the past four years. "It's staggering.
Every day I see a patient with breast cancer _ I just hold my own and
say a prayer."
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On the Net:
International Union Against Cancer, http://www.uicc.org/