THE country saw its cancer incidence rising at an annual rate of 3.9 percent for over 10 years in a row, with more than 220 billion yuan (US$32.46 billion) of cancer-related medical expenses each year, according to data collected up to 2015.

The country has set up 20 provincial-level cancer centers in a bid to improve the prevention and treatment of cancer, and its cancer registry has covered 438 million patients, said China’s latest cancer epidemic report released by the National Cancer Center.

Nearly 3.93 million cases were discovered in 2015, meaning that over 10,000 people were diagnosed with cancer every day, according to data of more than 300 million patients collected by cancer registries nationwide, the report said.

About 2.34 million people died of cancer in 2015, and cancer deaths in China had been growing by 2.5 percent year on year in over a decade up to 2015.

The report said China’s aging population had become one main cause of its increasing burden of cancer.

Lung cancer was the most prevalent form of cancer and the biggest killer, with some 787,000 new cases and 631,000 deaths in 2015.

Stomach, liver, colorectal and breast cancers continue to be the major cancers in China, while thyroid and prostate cancers appear to be rising threats to females and males, respectively.

The five-year relative survival rate of cancer in China was around 40.5 percent in 2015, up by about 10 percent in 10 years, yet much lower than the levels of developed countries, the report said.

For breast, thyroid and prostate cancers, three of the cancers with the best prognosis in China, the five-year relative survival rates were 82, 84.3 and 66.4 percent in 2015, while the figures in developed countries are generally above 95 percent, the report said, considering inadequacies of early diagnosis and standardized treatment to be the primary reasons. (Xinhua)