Cancer cause of 13% of deaths in M’sia last year

KUALA LUMPUR: Last year, cancer contributed 13.56% of all deaths in Malaysia, the third most common cause of death in the country.

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, in a statement here today, said it was ranked after diseases of the respiratory system (18.54%) and diseases of circulatory system (22.77%).

He said as reported by the Malaysian National Cancer Registry Report (MNCR) 2007-2011, a total of 103,507 new cancer cases were diagnosed in Malaysia during the period of 2007-2011.

Of this number, 46,794 (45.2%) were reported in males and 56,713 (54.8%) in females.

“As stated in the report, the risk of males getting cancer was one in 10, and for females, one in nine.

“The five most common cancers among males were cancers of the colorectum at 16.3%; lung (15.8%); nasopharynx (8.1 %); lymphoma (6.8%); and, prostate (6.7%),” it said.

As for females, the five most common were breast cancer (32.1%); colorectum (10.7%); cervix uteri (7.7%); ovary (6.1%); and lung (5.6%).

Noor Hisham said the next MNCR report would be for the data of 2012-2014 and the registry was now in the process of completing the data collection.

He said the Malaysian Cancer Registry was moving towards automation of cancer notifications by using a system called Patient Registry Information System (PRIS).

PRIS is a web application developed by Health Informatics Centre (HIC) of the Health Ministry, which will be launched soon.

“PRIS is a web application whereby, the data could be registered electronically and eventually flows into the Malaysia Health Data Warehouse.”

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