By Park Chung-a
Staff Reporter
The survival rate of South Korean cancer patients has been going up, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said on Thursday.
The proportion of cancer patients surviving at least five years after being diagnosed increased from 41.7 percent, between 1993 and 1997, to 46.3 percent, between 1998 and 2002, it said.
The nation's rate for overcoming the disease was slightly higher than Japan's 43.5 percent, but lower than the United States' at 64.9 percent.
Females showed a 55.7 percent five-year survival rate, compared with 35.7 percent for males as there was a relatively high rate of recovery from breast, cervix and other female-related cancers.
Meanwhile, 27.7 percent of men and 22.2 percent of women get cancer during their lifetime. As a whole, 25.6 percent of Koreans get cancer.
The number of cancer patients in South Korea reached 363,863 in 2004, showing a 70 percent hike over five years, mainly due to the aging of the population and Westernized diets. About 65,000 patients die annually from the disease.
For those aged from 1 to 14, leukemia was the most common type of cancer with 4.4 out of 100,000 males and 3.5 out of 100,000 females contracting it. As for those aged between 15 and 34, 4.1 of the men got gastric cancer, while 9.3 of the women contracted thyroid cancer.
In the 35-64 age group, most men suffered from gastric cancer with 92.1 per 100,000, while most women suffered from breast cancer with 60.7. For those aged over 65, lung cancer was most frequent among men at 464.1 while gastric cancer was most common among women with 170.
As a whole, gastric cancer was most frequent among men with 23.5 percent, followed by lung cancer at 16.9 percent, liver cancer at 16.7 percent and large intestine cancer, 10.3 percent. Gastric cancer was also most common among women at 16.1 percent, followed by breast cancer at 14.2 percent, large intestine cancer at 10.6 percent, uterine cancer at 9.5 percent and lung cancer, 7.9 percent.
Cases of large intestine cancer in men increased by 36.4 percent while those of thyroid cancer increased by 33.3 percent. As for women, thyroid gland cancer increased by 64.7 percent, while that of breast cancer increased by 36.8 percent.
``As the eating habits of Koreans are becoming more and more Westernized and the number of obese people in the population increases, cases of large intestine, thyroid and breast cancer have sharply increased,'' said Oh Jin-hee, a ministry official.
michelle@koreatimes.co.kr
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무디스, 스페인·伊·포르투갈 신용등급 강등
