The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) is considering initiating a trial program for providing government-funded painless colonoscopies for people aged 40 to 49 who have an immediate family member with colorectal cancer, as well as a human papillomavirus (HPV) test for women at three specific ages, starting next year.
President William Lai (賴清德) on Thursday presided over the second meeting of the Healthy Taiwan Promotion Committee at the Presidential Office.
Given that cancer has been the leading cause of death in Taiwan for 42 consecutive years, one of the committee’s goals is to reduce the standardized cancer mortality rate by one-third by the year 2030, Lai said during the meeting.
Photo: Lin Hui-chin, Taipei Times
To achieve this goal, screenings and advance treatments must be expanded, he said, adding that the budget for cancer screening next year would be increased to NT$6.8 billion (US$220 million).
About 53,000 people died of cancer last year, and it is an indisputable fact that cancers detected at earlier stages have higher five-year-survival rates, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Chou Jih-haw (周志浩) said at the meeting.
Most people diagnosed with cancer through a screening test are discovered to have precancerous lesions or early-stage cancer, whereas a majority diagnosed to have cancer without a screening test are already in the later stages, he said.
Increasing the screening coverage rate is imperative to reducing cancer mortality, he added.
The ministry is considering expanding the eligibility for cancer screening and adding new screening methods, including loosening the criteria of cigarette smokers eligible for lung cancer screening, expanding the eligible age range, adding an HPV test, providing HPV vaccines to boys in junior-high school, and offering painless colonoscopies to people with a higher risk of colorectal cancer, Chou said.
Asked about the publicly funded colonoscopies, Lin Li-ju (林莉茹), director of the Health Promotion Administration’s (HPA) Cancer Prevention and Control Division, said people with a family history of colorectal cancer are at a higher risk.
Therefore, the agency is mulling launching a trial program for offering free painless colonoscopies to people aged 40 to 49 who have an immediate family member with colorectal cancer, she said.
Meanwhile, HPA Director-General Wu Chao-chun (吳昭軍) yesterday said the agency plans to begin offering a government-funded HPV test to women aged 35, 45 and 65.
The main difference between an HPV test and a Pap smear is that an HPV test not only looks for cervical HPV infection (HPV is the cause of nearly all cervical cancers), but also the viral load, which helps diagnosis, he said.
Offering the HPV test to women aged 35 and 45 is recommended by international guidelines, while age 65 would be addend in Taiwan, as the HPV infection rate in elderly women in Taiwan remains relatively high. Many of them believe they no longer need to get a Pap smear at this age, so hopefully they would continue to get tested for HPV, Wu said.
The WHO recommends that women get a high-performance HPV test at ages 35 and 45 as part of a global strategy to eliminate cervical cancer.
In addition, publicly funded HPV vaccinations have been offered to girls in their first year of junior-high school since 2018, and there have been calls for boys to receive the HPV vaccines too, with some local governments already offering it to boys.
Asked about expanding the eligibility of HPV vaccination to boys nationwide, Wu confirmed that it would be offered to girls and boys in junior-high school nationwide starting in September next year.
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