Taiwan should address the lung cancer crisis with a strategy that encompasses environmental and medical policies, lawmakers and doctors said yesterday, as they urged the government to create a national office to combat the disease.
The lung cancer death toll last year stood at 10,053, higher than for any other type of cancer, Academia Sinica distinguished research fellow Jacqueline Whang Peng (彭汪嘉康) said at a news conference at the legislature in Taipei, citing Ministry of Health and Welfare data.
The mortality rate of lung cancer is higher in Taiwan than the average in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, she said.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
Taiwan is a participant in US President Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot 2.0 initiative launched in 2021 and its former iteration under then-US president Barack Obama, she said, adding that Taipei has pledged to reduce cancer deaths by 50 percent in the next 25 years.
This goal cannot be achieved without a interministerial agency to oversee a comprehensive package of policies, including funneling carbon tax and air pollution fund proceeds to tackle the medical costs of lung cancer, Whang Peng said.
Taiwan is exceptional in maintaining an increasing lung cancer rate over the past 10 years with the prevalence of the disease gaining in women, but remaining the same in men, said Yu Jong-ren (余忠仁), superintendent of National Taiwan University Hospital’s Hsinchu branch.
More than 50 percent of Taiwanese lung cancer patients are non-smokers and the figure rises to 90 percent if only women are counted, Yu said, adding that the phenomena is believed to be linked to air pollution, second-hand smoking and family health history.
Lung cancer has a high death rate because the disease is difficult to detect in the earlier stages of progression when it can still be treated, he said.
Japan — which devotes a large amount of resources to encourage lung cancer screening and subsidizes the cost of medicines utilized in its treatment — has achieved better success in reducing the disease’s mortality rate than Taiwan, he added.
This points to a possible strategy for the nation to imitate, Yu said.
Pulmonary cancer is a significant contributing factor to the decline of Taiwan’s demographic, said James Yang (楊志新), superintendent of National Taiwan University Cancer Center.
The mismatch between a relatively low number of Taiwanese smokers and high rates of lung cancer suggest that substantial subsidies need to be invested in cancer screening to identify people with high risks of the disease, Yang said.
Many Taiwanese women erroneously believe they are safe from lung cancer because they do not smoke, while being exposed to other risk factors, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Ching-yi (林靜儀) said, citing her experience as a doctor.
Realizing the policies that go into effective cancer prevention and treatment requires the creation of a national-level agency standing above the various ministries, Lin said.
Lung cancer has been the nation’s top cause of cancer-related deaths for 19 consecutive years despite the listing of a NT$1 billion (US$30.85 million) budget by the government last year to help people who received a possible positive diagnosis, DPP Legislator Legislator Wu Yu-chin (吳玉琴) said.
The lack of money for patients to afford medicines has resulted in treatment delays that often prove fatal, Wu said, urging the government to establish an experimental drugs fund for patients.
The government should lower the eligibility age for free lung cancer screening from 50 to 40, as the average patient receives a positive diagnosis in their 40s, New Power Party Chairwoman Claire Wang (王婉諭) said.
Taiwan must deal with clear evidence that its stage 4 lung cancer survivability rate is worse than South Korea and Japan, Wang said.
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