JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Tuesday, July 29, 2025

T&T among highest cancer mortality in Americas

by

20131106

Trinidad and To­ba­go has one of the re­gion's high­est can­cer mor­tal­i­ty rates, ac­cord­ing to a new re­port from the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (PA­HO).

The re­port links the coun­try's high in­ci­dence of can­cer-re­lat­ed death to the preva­lence of obe­si­ty in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean.

Obe­si­ty, an im­por­tant can­cer risk fac­tor, is preva­lent in T&T, as well as in the Ba­hamas, Be­lize and Saint Kitts & Nevis. Obe­si­ty is de­scribed as a body mass in­dex of 30 or above.

How to cal­cu­late your Body Mass In­dex.

The re­port al­so showed that T&T pro­vides lim­it­ed ac­cess to opi­oids (less than13 mg to­tal mor­phine equiv­a­lents per capi­ta).

How­ev­er, it ac­knowl­edged that T&T was one of on­ly 13 of 35 coun­tries that re­port­ed hav­ing in­tro­duced vac­cines for HPV–which caus­es cer­vi­cal can­cer–in­to its na­tion­al im­mu­ni­sa­tion pro­gram.

Down­load the PDF: Find out more about can­cer mor­tal­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Can­cer rate high­est in Caribbean, Latin Amer­i­ca

The PA­HO re­port shows that Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean ac­count for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 50% of can­cer deaths in the Amer­i­c­as, al­though they ac­count for 63% of the hemi­sphere's pop­u­la­tion.

Over­all, can­cer is hold­ing steady as the sec­ond-lead­ing cause of death in the Amer­i­c­as, claim­ing an es­ti­mat­ed 1.3 mil­lion lives each year, ac­cord­ing to Can­cer in the Amer­i­c­as: Coun­try Pro­files, 2013, re­leased this week at the 5th In­ter­na­tion­al Can­cer Con­trol Con­gress (Nov. 3�6) in Li­ma, Pe­ru.

Can­cer deaths over­all are de­clin­ing in nine coun­tries: Ar­genti­na, Brazil, Cana­da, Chile, Mex­i­co, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Venezuela and the Unit­ed States.

Mex­i­co, Nicaragua and El Sal­vador have the low­est can­cer mor­tal­i­ty rates.

Women more at risk

Al­though can­cer mor­tal­i­ty rates vary for men and women, it is typ­i­cal­ly high­er in men, dri­ven by high rates of lung and prostate can­cers. In Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean men, the ma­jor­i­ty of can­cer deaths are due to prostate can­cer, fol­lowed by lung, stom­ach and col­orec­tal can­cers; and in women, breast can­cer, fol­lowed by stom­ach, lung, cer­vi­cal and col­orec­tal can­cers.

"The large num­ber of deaths from breast and cer­vi­cal can­cer in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean is very dis­con­cert­ing, since cer­vi­cal can­cer is large­ly pre­ventable, and breast can­cer can be de­tect­ed ear­ly and treat­ed suc­cess­ful­ly,'' said Sil­vana Lu­ciani, PA­HO/WHO ad­vi­sor on can­cer pre­ven­tion and con­trol.

''This points to the need to im­prove screen­ing and treat­ment, es­pe­cial­ly for women in rur­al and re­mote ar­eas, where ac­cess to health ser­vices is es­pe­cial­ly lim­it­ed."

Health da­ta can im­prove pol­i­cy

The re­port is based on re­cent da­ta com­piled by PA­HO about can­cer mor­tal­i­ty, risk fac­tors, and can­cer poli­cies and ser­vices in the coun­tries of North, South and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

For each coun­try, da­ta are pre­sent­ed for lead­ing can­cer types (ranked by mor­tal­i­ty); trends in can­cer deaths from 2000 to 2010; main can­cer risk fac­tors (to­bac­co, al­co­hol, di­et, phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty, obe­si­ty); key so­cio-de­mo­graph­ic fac­tors; and health sec­tor plans, poli­cies and ser­vices for can­cer.

"The idea is to pro­vide key in­for­ma­tion that can help coun­tries mon­i­tor progress in can­cer con­trol and as­sess ar­eas of need," said Lu­ciani. "This re­port con­tributes sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the ev­i­dence base for can­cer pol­i­cy­mak­ing and health care."

Al­though T&T has a na­tion­al, hos­pi­tal-based can­cer reg­istry, the last year for which da­ta are avail­able is 2011.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored