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Cancer: A need to practise healthy lifestyle

Must really practise healthy lifestyle ...

Cancer to hit more women
By FLORENCE A. SAMY

newsdesk@thestar.com.my

KUALA LUMPUR: The common types of cancer in men are those affecting the large bowel, lung, nasopharynx, prostate and liver.

For women, they were prone to breast cancer, followed by large bowel, cervix, ovarian and thyroid, said Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.

Almost 32,000 new cancer cases were expected to be detected this year with females making up 53.7% of them, he added.

Liow said the figures were based on the expected 28.9 million population for this year.

“Based on the latest National Cancer Regis-try Report 2006, cancer incidence for males was 99.8 per 100,000 population and for females it was 120 per 100,000 people.

“Cancer prevalence is highest among the Chinese (161 per 100,000 population), followed by Indians (93) and Malays (72),” he said yesterday before launching a book on cancer and healthy lifestyle.

Liow said leukaemia was the most common cancer among children at 35.6%, followed by cancer of the brain and nervous system (10.1%) and bone cancer (8.3%).

About 500 cases of childhood cancer is expected this year.

“Cancer incidence in 2006 among children (0 to 14 years) was 4.5 per 100,000 people,” he said.

Liow said his ministry was taking a comprehensive approach in addressing cancer, including reminding people that being overweight or obese was a gateway to getting the disease.

“Prevention is better than cure,” he said.

Source: The Star

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