Associate Professor and Deputy Director of K hospital (Hanoi) Tran Van Thuan said that Vietnam ranks third in the world with the number of male cancer cases at 135.2 – 178.3 patients for every 100,000 men.
Thuan said the mortality rate of Vietnamese male cancer patients is also among the highest in the world, with over 142 cancer deaths per 100,000 people.
Complicated cancers among adult males in Vietnam are prevelent, Thuan said, and the majority of the population, especially men, neglect their health. Diagnosis and treatment of cancer only occurs in the latter stages of the disease in over 70 percent of the cases, when the chances of beating the cancer have greatly decreased.
Statistic shows that the cancer rate per 100,000 people among the country's male population has increased from 29.3 in 2000 to 35.1 in the past 10 years.
The cancer rate among Vietnamese women is lower with breast cancer accounting for the highest rate which stands at 30 for every 100,000 women, while cervical cancer is the only type of cancer to have fallen, from 17.3 to 13.6 per 100,000.
According to Thuan, most patients who are diagnosed with cancer seek treatment in the later stages. The figure is near 88 percent for liver cancer and 84 percent for lung cancer, while more common types of cancer found in women such as breast and cervical cancer are 50 and 54 percent respectively.
According to Professor Pham Cam Chuong from Bach Mai Hospital, cancer is a burden not only in Asia but also on other continents. The World Health Organization estimated in 2012 that the world has recorded 14 million new cancer cases and 8.2 million deaths. In 2020, this figure is projected to rise to 22 million and more than half of them are at risk of dying.
“The majority of cancer patients live in low and middle-income countries such as Vietnam. This disease is becoming a silent health disaster,” Chuong said.