Cancer

It is reported that 250,000 people get treatment for cancer that is 1:183 in population.

National health Insurance Corporation analyzed cancer treatments carried out last year and stated on 13th that 251,125 received treatment for cancer and 105,237 among those had been diagnosed newly.

Men were 55.4%(58,307) and women were 44.6%(46,930).

Cancer patients among 100,000 people are 545, Chungnam (674) and Jeonnam (650), where aged population is high, have relatively many patients, and Ulsan (406) and Gwangju (447) were less.

Treatment fee per person was up to 5.98 million and 4.4 million of it was treated by insurance, however, considering money that insurance doesn`t handle such as special treatment, ultra sound, sickroom, etc, actual amount would reach 10 million won, estimated NHIC.

70,501 among 101,781, who were hospitalized due to cancer in 2000, survived for one year till last year.

Cancer that has the highest survival rate after one year is breast cancer (97%), uterine cancer (93%), ovary cancer, skin cancer, and prostate cancer (90% respectively).

And 2,260 houses have above 2 cancer patients among family members and 6 houses have three cancer patients.

Among comprehensive cancer patients, stomach cancer was the highest (20%) followed by colon cancer (11.1%), breast cancer (10.1%), liver cancer (9.4%) and lung cancer (9.3%). By age, 87% was above 40 aged. Teenager Patients were 5,209(2%) and most of them had blood cancer, cartilage cancer, brain cancer, etc.

Sang-Keun Song songmoon@donga.com