Materia Medica Malaysiana

Ministry to tap into data to fight cancer

JOHOR BARU: The Health Ministry will tap into the data of cancer cases registered with the National Cancer Registry to draw up plans and provide medical facilities to fight the illness.

Health Ministry’s director-general Tan Sri Dr Mohammad Taha Arif said the registry had so far registered 26,089 cancer cases but the ministry believed the figure only represented two-third of those affected.

“There are many who are not registered yet but this is not the responsibility of the affected person,” he said, adding that it was the duty of service providers such as the practitioners, laboratories and x-ray centres to help register such patients.

“We hope to create an awareness among the service providers to submit the vital information to us so that we can gauge the actual number and plan for sufficient facilities in future,” he said.

Information collected by the registry could also be useful in drawing up educational and promotional programmes for public awareness, he said yesterday after opening the 4th Johor Scientific Meeting themed “Cancer – Challenges Ahead.”

With sufficient data, the ministry could concentrate on the target group, list out the risk factors, draw up preventive measures, request for more medical staff and larger budget, he added.

Dr Taha said according to the registry, most of the 11,825 males who were diagnosed with cancer were suffering from lung cancer while majority of the 14,274 cases involving females had breast cancer.

Variations according to age and ethnicity were also observed, he said, adding that men developed cancer at an average age of 59 years old while it was 52 for women and 82% of cancer occurred among those aged 40 and above.

Dr Taha pointed out that while cancer was once akin to receiving a “death sentence,” there were now many ways to detect the illness and various drugs had been found to fight the disease.

“What is important is that one goes for early screening. In many cases, cancer can now be totally cured or there are sufficient medication to prolong one’s life span even after being diagnosed with cancer,” he said.

He added that a healthy lifestyle and a proper diet could lower the risk of cancer.