afrol News, 17 April - The Algerian tumour registry is reporting a slowly increasing number of registered cancer cases in the North African country, reaching a total of 30,000 during last year. Breast cancer is the most common among women, while men are most hit by lung cancer.

According to the latest data from the Algeria' Pierre & Marie Curie anti-cancer centre (CPMC), Algeria has recorded over 30,000 new cases of cancer nationwide per year, a Public Health Institute official in El Biar said. The Algerian tumour registry has reported more that 80 cancer cases per 100,000 inhabitants in men and women.

The CPMC estimates that the number of cancer will reach more than 34,000 cases per year by 2012, continuing the increase in registered numbers during the last years.

Professor Doudja Hamouda of the Public health Institute said the tumour registry data of CPMC for the period 1993-2007 reported nearly 50.3 percent of cases among women and nearly 49.7 percent of cases among men.

The data revealed that breast cancer as the highest among women with 4,541 cases representing 29 percent in 2007, followed by cervical cancer with 1,612 cases, which is 10.5 percent, colorectal cancer with 1,882 cases (7.1 percent) and then of thyroid cancer with 737 cases representing 4.8 percent of the total cancer cases among women.

The data also showed that lung cancer was toping the charts in men with 1,681 cases, representing 12.3 percent, colorectal cancer with 1,180, 8.6 percent, prostate cancer with 1,169, 8.5 percent, skin cancer with 1,005 cases, 7.3 percent and cancer of the digestive tract with 942 cases representing 6.9 percent.

The data has also revealed that up to 8,706 cases of cancer in early stages were detected in 2007 in both sexes, 6,093 cases in the second stage and 4,202 cases in the third stage.

For children, 1,267 cases were recorded during the same year with 748 boys (59 percent) and 519 females (41 percent) or some 23 cases per 100,000 inhabitants for the first category and some 16 cases per 100,000 inhabitants for the second category, since leukaemia is a top cancers in children.

The CPMC register indicates that, regarding therapy, some 12,376 patients had undergone surgery the same year, 2,031 in the centre and 1,543 indicated in the private sector. Some 9,712 patients have undergone treatment of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in the public sector.

Local newspapers reported experts attributing the slight cancer increase to the change of diet and environmental pollution.

By staff writers

© afrol News

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