By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter

Korean men develop gastric cancer while women suffer from breast cancer more than any other form of the disease according to a report released Sunday.

The National Health Insurance Corporation (NHIC) reported that the number of newly diagnosed cancer patients is going up each year, with the majority of people being screened for the illnesses at an early stage.

This contributed to the increasing five-year-survival rate, it said.

It reported that 550,226 people were treated for cancer through health insurance in 2008, up 12.3 percent from 2007. The corporation has spent 2.5 trillion won to cover medical expenses.

For men, the most prevalent cancers were linked with the stomach, large intestine, liver, lung and prostate while cancers of the breast, thyroid, stomach, large intestine and uterus affected women most.

Conventionally, male cancer patients outnumber their opposite sex but in 2008, more women were diagnosed than men.

The authorities assumed that the screening techniques on relatively-benign thyroid disease have enabled early detection, which has lifted the five-year-survival rate.

The early detection rate was 12 percentage points higher for women than men. Thyroid, breast and prostatic cancers marked 99.2 percent, 97.7 percent and 93.5 percent five-year-survival rates but the most malignant pancreatic cancer showed only 41.7 percent. Gastric cancer, the most diagnosed, marked 79.7 percent.

"The increase of cancer patients is not all bad. It often means that more people can fight it at an early stage, making a good recovery and preventing relapses," Park Il-su, a corporation researcher, said.

bjs@koreatimes.co.kr