Asian women at higher risk of breast & cervical cancers; India lacks elimination targets: Study

Asia was also found to have the world's highest death rate from cervical cancer, with more than 58 per cent related to it.

 Women in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region are at a disproportionately higher risk of developing breast and cervical cancers when compared to those worldwide, an Economist report has found.

The ‘Impact and Opportunity: the Case for Investing in Women’s Cancers in Asia Pacific’ report, sponsored by Roche and published by Economist Impact, examines the burden of breast and cervical cancers on six Asian countries – India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam – and identifies market-specific gaps and opportunities for improvement.

The report also says with limited awareness, stigma, and a lack of access to quality and timely screening, diagnosis, treatment, and care services, women in low- and middle-income countries have inferior outcomes when it comes to breast and cervical cancers.

Breast cancer is further anticipated to climb by 20.9 per cent in Asia between 2020 and 2030, while death will rise by 27.8 per cent. At the same time, the incidence of cervical cancer is predicted to rise by 18.9 per cent, while death will rise by 24.9 per cent, the report found

About 2.3 million cases of breast cancer were diagnosed globally in 2020, with almost half in Asia (45 per cent). Breast cancer was found to be the fourth most common cancer in India at 26.3 per cent.

Some cancers were found to affect women differently than men due to specific gender-related risk factors such as incidence, care, and death. The report also found that cervical cancer was the second-most common disease affecting women and female breast cancer surpassed lung cancer as the most common newly-diagnosed cancer worldwide in 2020.