[Robots upgrade surgery quality for Vietnamese]
Dr Nguyen Dinh Song Huy, deputy
head of the oncology centre at Cho Ray Hospital, said the centre had seen an
increase in new incidences of liver cancer year-by-year, from 2,793 in 2010 to
4,069 last year. Of the figure, the male-female ratio was 4.48 to one.
Most of the patients were aged 50
to 60, while the highest number of cases were from the Mekong Delta region.
Huy said that hepatitis B and C
were the main causes of liver cancer, with 91 percent of 24,091 patients from
2010 to 2016 diagnosed with hepatitis. Forty-one percent of the cases were
detected at a late, incurable stage.
Since liver cancer often does not
show clinical symptoms, patients with hepatitis B and C should be tested for
the disease, according to Huy.
At a two-day conference on viral
hepatitis B and C in Vietnam in late July in HCM City, Dr Nguyen Thu Anh of the
General Department of Preventive Medicine said that many patients in the
country had difficulties in accessing diagnosis and treatment, partly due to
lack of finance.
Around 3.22 million patients in
the country this year were diagnosed with hepatitis B, which may or may not be
treated with drugs, depending on how high the viral load is or whether there is
cirrhosis of the liver, according to Anh.
However, only 43,230 patients
with hepatitis B virus infection have been treated this year, she said.
Unlike hepatitis B, patients
with hepatitis C must receive drug therapies, which are expensive. Of the
967,000 patients with hepatitis C in the country, only 74,000 have received
treatment this year.
Deaths from liver cancer totalled
30,000 in 2015 and are expected to rise to 45,000 in 2030 if screening and lack
of medical intervention continues.-VNA