KUALA LUMPUR, 03 January 2020 — The findings of the Malaysia National Cancer Registry Report 2012–2016 (MNCRR) released today by the Ministry of Health underline a sober reality.

“Despite significant efforts over the past two decades by both government and non-government organisations, more people continued to be diagnosed late with cancer,” said Azrul Mohd Khalib, Chief Executive of the Galen Centre for Health & Social Policy commenting on the report. “In fact, the percentage of cases detected in Stage 3 and 4 rose from 58.7 percent (2007-2011) to 63.7 percent in 2012 to 2016. Unfortunately, late diagnosis of cancer often results in poorer survival rates.”

“For that reporting period, breast, colorectal, and cervical cancer were the top three cancers among women. For men, it was colorectal, lung, and prostate gland cancers. The picture didn’t change much for women but for men, prostate cancer has overtaken nasopharyngeal cancer as the third most commonly diagnosed.”

“The report’s findings, particularly the rates of lung cancer which are the second highest among men, justifies and validates the Government’s campaign to aggressively enforce the smoking ban in public places,” Azrul pointed out. “Lung cancer has a 5-year relative survival rate of only 11 percent. 90 percent of lung cancer patients were diagnosed in either stages three or four.”

“A bright spark in the report is the significant drop in cervical cancer cases from eight to six cases for every 100,000 females,” emphasised Azrul. ” Was it due to the investments made in the national HPV (human papillomavirus) immunisation programme? The widespread availability and uptake of the HPV vaccine?  We need to learn from that success and better understand what interventions worked and what didn’t. ”

“What this registry report tells us, is that five years ago, the efforts of the cancer control strategy at that time, were generally insufficient to meet the burden of ensuring early detection of the disease, provide timely diagnosis and successfully ensure good linkage with treatment. Perhaps the situation has improved since then. We need better and more current data to reflect the sense of urgency.”

“Future registry reports should be released earlier to ensure that cancer policies are guided by updated data, lessons learnt and evidence of failures and achievements.”

“The National Strategic Plan for Cancer Control Programme (NSPCCP) 2016-2020 ends this year,” Azrul pointed out. “The release of this report gives us an opportunity to take stock, review and evaluate the successes and failures from implementation of this plan. We should know what investments worked, those that didn’t and respond to gaps in resources.”

“We need to be better at monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of cancer policies in order for the findings to be relevant and for timely interventions to be introduced to respond to current needs and challenges. We recommend that the Ministry of Health introduce a consultative process for development of the next strategic plan that is bottom-up and involves not only healthcare care providers but also patients and caregivers.”

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