Cancer remains a big challenge to Vietnam’s health sector although a national target programme on cancer prevention and control has been underway for the past several years.

The assessment was made at a conference on cancer prevention and control held in the northern mountainous province of Thai Nguyen on November 5.

The function heard more than 50 reports on such themes as Vietnam’s cancer situation, cancer prevention and early diagnosis, the use of radiation in cancer treatment, and the disease situation in Thai Nguyen in 2011 and 2012.

At present, there are 25 cancer hospitals and centres in Vietnam, where some 150,000 new cancer patients are recorded and 70,000 of them die every year.

Overcrowding at special institutions across the country is also considered as a pressing problem that cannot be solved overnight, participants said.

The Thai Nguyen Tumour Centre each year treats about 6,000 inpatients and over 19,000 outpatients. Most of the female patients suffer from breast cancer while lung cancer is more common in men here.

The event was co-organised by the Vietnam Cancer Association in coordination with the Thai Nguyen General Hospital.-VNA