Cancer increasing on the mainland
January, 2013-01-13
The number of middle-aged mainlanders developing cancerous tumours doubled over the two decades to 2009, a new national report says.At the same time, the overall frequency and mortality of cancers have both risen, a development mainly ascribed to the ageing population.
The 2012 China Cancer Registry Annual Report, produced by the Ministry of Health’s National Cancer Registry Centre, said the prevalence of all kinds of cancers on the mainland was 285.91 cases for every 100,000 people in 2009, compared with 184 cases per 100,000 people in the late 1980s. About 3.12 million people a year – or 8,550 people a day – were diagnosed with cancers, the report said.
Read the article on The China Morning Post
Cancer in China influenced by pollution, poverty
2013-02-04 ( Xinhua) BEIJING – Cancer and its treatment in China is influenced by air pollution, poverty and a fledgling medical insurance system, the Health News, an affiliate newspaper of the Health Ministry, reported Monday — also World Cancer Day.
The same type of cancer shows different characteristics in the east and the west. Treatments also vary due to social and economic factors. The Health News cited breast cancer, lung cancer, and colorectal cancer as examples.
Breast cancer
While the incidence rate of breast cancer shrinks in western countries, the traditional high-burden countries, it is on the rise in China as a result of changes in lifestyles, living conditions, diets, and the westernization of cities, Jiang Zefei, breast cancer expert with the 307 Hospital of PLA, said in Health News. (…)
Lung cancer
Chinese patients tend to have more severe adhesion and calcification at pulmonary hilar lymph node, when compared to Europeans and Americans, according to Wang Jun, chest surgery expert with the Peking University People’s Hospital.
In Health News, he attributed such characteristics to air pollution, living conditions and diet, among other factors. (…)
Abnormal hyperplasia at pulmonary hilar lymph node means higher risks during surgeries, Wang said. As the blood vessels at the pulmonary hilar region have extremely thin walls, separating the adhesive hyperplasia could lead to massive, life-threatening bleeding in the chest.
Colorectal cancer
In China, the age of colorectal cancer incidence is ten years earlier than that in western countries. While the west reports more cancer of the colon than rectal, it is opposite in China, Gu Jin, colorectal surgery expert with Beijing Cancer Hospital, said in Health News. Gu said there had been no convincing explanation yet due to a lack of large-scale epidemiological surveys.However, he said poor medical insurance contributed to Chinese doctors searching for flexible ways of treating rectal cancer. (…)
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Jacqueline Nivard (February 6, 2013). Cancer in China. URBACHINA. Retrieved February 8, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/v2cr
