The rate of women with breast cancer has increased in recent years in Vietnam, with about 15,000 new patients every year on average, while 70 percent of cases are detected late, a senior health expert has announced. 

>> Vietnam has 116,000 new cancer cases every year: seminar >> VN's cancer death rate among world’s highest The striking figures were announced by Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Xuyen at a meeting held in Hanoi on Sunday to launch a Media Festival Day for Breast Cancer Prevention and Control. The event was jointly conducted by the Ministry of Health and the Roche Group, a giant Swiss pharmaceutical group that leads the world in medicine for cancer treatment. For several reasons, including low public awareness of prevention of the deadly disease, as many as 70 percent of breast cancer cases in Vietnam are detected late, leading to low efficacy in treatment, Xuyen said at the meeting. Meanwhile, in developed countries, 80 percent of breast cancer patients are saved thanks to early detection and timely treatment. Breast cancer ranks second among the most deadly diseases, with 7 million new breast cancer cases and some 52,000 deaths recorded every year, Xuyen added. “We hope that the mass media contributes to making everybody aware that breast cancer is not an incurable disease. With a positive lifestyle, everyone can prevent the disease by self-examining their breasts to detect any abnormal signs and stop the cancer early,” she said. “Breast cancer can be cured completely if patients are treated on time and properly,” she stressed. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Van Thuan, deputy director of the Hanoi-based K Hospital and head of the Research Institute for Cancer Prevention and Control, has previously said that one of the difficulties in breast cancer treatment is that women, and the general population, are not well informed of the disease.Breast cancer rate rises 69% in 10 years According to a study conducted by the K Hospital in 2000, the rate of women with the cancer was 17.7/100,000 women. By 2011 the figure had sharply increased to 29.9/100,000 women, Dr. Thuan said.  That means the rate of women with breast cancer increased nearly 69 percent within 10 years. Most breast cancer patients are hospitalized when their disease is already in the advanced stage, so treatment is not very effective, he pointed out. 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. The professor also specified which women are at a higher risk of breast cancer.

Accordingly, women who have used a coil for over 10 years will be two-to-four times more likely to develop breast cancer than those who do not use this means of contraception. Meanwhile, women who have a family history of breast cancer are six times more likely to contract the disease. In addition, obese women and those who eat too much eat and not enough fruit and vegetables also run a higher risk.

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