The cancer “clock” in Taiwan “sped up” by 17 seconds in 2022 from the year before, meaning that a new cancer case is diagnosed every four minutes and two seconds in Taiwan, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday.
Prior to 2019, the number of cancer cases increased by 4,000 to 5,000 a year, HPA Cancer Prevention and Control Division Director Lin Li-ju (林莉茹) said.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people’s willingness to seek medical treatment decreased, but as the pandemic eased in 2022, people started getting screenings and medical treatment again, resulting in an increase in the number of new cancer patients, Lin said.
Photo: Taipei Times
Cancer has been the leading cause of death in the country for 42 years, with more than 50,000 people dying from it every year, HPA data showed.
In 2022, lung cancer was the most common, with 17,982 cases, followed by 17,643 cases of colon or rectal cancer and 17,366 cases of female breast cancer.
Compared with the previous year, the incidence rates for breast, lung, prostate, uterine, stomach, thyroid and skin cancer all increased.
A rise in the number of cancer cases is not necessarily negative. The proportion of early cancer detection for the three most common cancers also increased, meaning there are more opportunities for treatment.
Meanwhile, the National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) yesterday said that 30 new medical services are now available to patients as part of the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme, including genetic cancer screenings that can detect seven different strains of cancer. It was introduced on Dec. 1.
The new services are to be awarded 123 million NHI points (one point is about NT$0.9 of funding) to benefit 66,000 patients annually, with an investment of NT$110 million (US$3.37 million), it said.
The NHIA is to award 5 million points to cover the Ozaki procedure for people under 18 who have aortic valve disease.
It is a new surgical procedure to reconstruct the aortic valve and has a high recovery rate, which reduces the need for repeat surgeries, Medical Affairs Division Director Chen Yi-chieh (陳依婕) said, adding that it would benefit about 13 patients per year.
The NHIA is to also offer the prostate-specific antigen isoform test to about 19,000 people per year, Chen said, adding that the test does not need biopsies, is more reliable than the current test and reduces the risk of complications.
Testing for the hepatitis B core related antigen, a biomarker that indicates viral replication of hepatitis B, is also available, he said.
The new test reduces the high relapse rate and complication risk for people who have chronic hepatitis B and stop antiviral treatment, which would help about 34,000 patients per year, he added.
As medical technology is continuously developing, new medical treatments are to continue to be added and revised under the NHI budget, Chen said.
The NHIA is working together with medical experts and insurance plan holders to offer people the latest medical technology, he added.
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