"The treatment of tumor patients should be standardized," urged experts including academician Hao Xishan from the Chinese Academy of Engineering at the Fourth Chinese Conference on Oncology (CCO) held in Tianjin late in October.

 

Statistics show that on average 2.2 million new cases of cancer develop each year with 1.6 million fatalities. Currently, there are 3.1 million people suffering from cancer. In the last 20 years, cancer mortality rate has increased by 29.42 percent. The number of people who die of cancer accounts for 24 percent of the total number of deaths nationwide. That is to say, one in four to five deaths in China is due to cancer.

 

However, with the number of cancer patients increasing year by year, half of them cannot receive topical treatment.

 

Topical treatment means planned, orderly and standard treatment according to the biological characteristics of the tumor, its developmental trend and so on. This conforms to the treatment principle, emphasizing the condition of the patients themselves, all-round evaluation of the tumor and accurate using of various treatment methods. 

 

Currently, non-standard treatment of tumors still prevails in China. Many cancer patients miss out on the best treatment opportunities and bear a much heavier economic burden because of wrong treatment methods, which accelerate their deaths. Due to the lack of topical treatment, less than one quarter of cancer patients live five years after diagnosis in China. This ratio stands at 68 percent in developed countries like the US while plummeting to 40 percent in big Chinese cities like Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai.

 

Hao Xishan says there are two reasons for this. Firstly, research into tumor treatment has been undergoing fast growth, while China lacks relevant topical treatment training and suffers from a low admittance system of professionally-trained tumor specialists. Even community hospitals are treating cancer patients. Secondly, driven by profits, the medical market is swamped with exaggerating and false advertisements. The gates of hospitals are also swamped with throwaway distributors.

 

Experts suggest that a nationwide information database for cancer patients be set up and that the registration system also be improved. The use of traditional Chinese medicine and psychological therapy in tumor treatment should be emphasized.

 

(China.org.cn by Li Xiaohua, November 9, 2006)