‘Jordan records 13 cancer cases daily’

The Kingdom registers around 13 cancer cases every day, while breast cancer is the most common form of the disease, a Ministry of Health official said on Tuesday. Mohammad Tarawneh, director of the ministry’s non-communicable diseases directorate, said the Kingdom registered 942 breast cancer cases in 2009, or 19.6 per cent of the 4,798 total cancer cases found in Jordanians that year. Of the total cancer incidence in Jordan, 2,280 cases (47.5 per cent) were among male patients and 2,518 cases (52.5 per cent) among female patients, he said, citing figures from the 14th Jordan Cancer Registry that was launched yesterday. Colorectal cancer was the most common cancer in men with 290 cases reported, followed by lung cancer (256), leukaemia (189), bladder cancer (184), prostate cancer (179), non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (128), brain cancer (100), laryngeal cancer (88), stomach cancer (68), and Hodgkin’s disease (68). In women, 926 cases of breast cancer — the most common cancer in general — were registered, followed by colorectal cancer (264), thyroid cancer (140), leukaemia (114), non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (110), uterine and unspecified cancer (104), Hodgkin’s disease (79), stomach cancer (77), ovarian cancer (75), and brain cancer (72). Cases of cancer in children aged 15 years or under constituted 4.8 per cent of the total incidence, with 231 cases reported. As for the geographical distribution of cancer cases, Amman registered the most cases of any governorate with 2,867, followed by Irbid Governorate with 635 cases and Zarqa with 505. The southern Governorate of Tafileh had the lowest cancer rate, registering only 38 cases, according to the report. Figures in the report also showed that some 1,752 cases were registered among non-Jordanians in 2009, raising the total number of cases reported in the Kingdom to 6,650. The recently released figures mark a 7 per cent rise in total cancer incidence from 2008, when the Kingdom registered 6,214 cancer cases: 4,606 among Jordanians and 1,608 among non-Jordanians. Meanwhile, Minister of Health Abdul Latif Wreikat said that although cancer treatment in the Kingdom is advanced, the treatment remains difficult for most Jordanians to afford. Cancer medication is very expensive, even for rich patients,” he said. The cost of treating a cancer patient ranges between JD10,000 and JD15,000. Ideally, he added, cancer treatment should be “free for all Jordanians”, but “the ministry cannot afford the high expenses of treating cancer”. The minister stressed that better prevention efforts would reduce cancer incidence and costs, as 30 per cent of the cases diagnosed in 2009 could have been avoided with healthier lifestyles. Figures he presented showed that treating non-communicable diseases (cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular illnesses) costs Jordan more than JD950 million each year. Wreikat also explained that cancer remained the second leading cause of death in Jordan after cardiovascular diseases, causing 14 per cent of all deaths in 2009. Data for the report were collected and abstracted by trained registry staff through regular visits to all hospitals across the country, according to Tarawneh, who noted that the latest National Cancer Registry contains figures for 2009 because it takes 20 to 24 months to verify primary cancer.