The number of breast cancer patients has been increasing in Vietnam in recent years, with around 14,000 new patients contracting the disease every year on average, said Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Van Thuan, deputy director of Hanoi-based K Hospital. The rate of women with the deadly cancer was up to 29.9/100,000 women in 2011 from 17.7/100,000 women in 2000, resulting in an increase of 69% within ten years, Dr. Thuan said at a seminar in Hanoi last week. Vietnamese doctors are now as good at examining, diagnosing and treating breast cancer as their colleagues in many other countries in Southeast Asia, he said. He cited a study of the K Hospital in 2000 as saying that more than 70% of breast cancer patients cured at the infirmary saw no recurrence or metastasis within five years after treatment. The rate is equivalent to that in Singapore, Dr. Thuan said. Foreign health experts suggest that women should be screened for breast cancer every year after the age of 45, but Vietnamese women should be screened at a younger age as they tend to contract the disease earlier, he noted. In Vietnam, one of the difficulties in breast cancer treatment is that women and the general population are not well informed of the disease, Dr. Thuan said, adding that most breast cancer patients are hospitalized when their disease is in the advanced stage so treatment is not very effective. (An Ninh Thu Do – Capital Security Jul 19)
