The medical name for nose cancer is nasopharyngeal cancer or NPC. Do you know that nose cancer is also referred to as "Cantonese cancer"? No wonder my oncologist asked if I was Cantonese.
Nose cancer is very common in Asia, predominantly in southern China & Hong Kong where the majority are Cantonese. That was how the nickname "Cantonese cancer" came about. Nose cancer is also prevalent in Taiwan and the Chinese communities in South-East Asia & other parts of the world. For some unknown reasons, nose cancer is relatively rare in Caucasians, Indians and Japanese.
There are approximately 300 new cases of NPC diagnosed in Singapore each year. Men are more prone to get nose cancer than women, in the ratio of 2.8 : 1. That is, almost 3 out of every 4 nose cancer cases are men. In simple language, it means that out of every 100 people with nose cancer, 75 are men & 25 are women. No wonder nose cancer is sometimes referred to as "men's cancer".
I obtained the following statistics from the respective countries' cancer register :
- Nose cancer is ranked 6th in Singapore, 2nd in Malaysia, 5th in Hong Kong & 10th in Taiwan among the most common cancers in men.
- However, nose cancer is nowhere among the Top 10 cancers for women in these countries. Breast cancer is unanimously the No.1 cancer affecting women not only in Asia but also in the world.
References :
Singapore Cancer Registry
http://www.hpb.gov.sg/uploadedFiles/HPB_Online/Publications/CancerTrends2002-2006.pdf
National Cancer Registry, Ministry of Health Malaysia
http://www.radiologymalaysia.org/Archive/NCR/2ndNCR.pdf
Hong Kong Cancer Registry, HK Hospital Authority
http://www3.ha.org.hk/cancereg/
Taiwan Cancer Registry
http://crs.cph.ntu.edu.tw/uploadimages/Leading_10.pdf
1 comment:
Absolutely great article to read.
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