Skin cancer has become the most common cancer in Russia

The Russian Ministry of Health reported the most common types of cancer in Russia in 2017. RBC writes about this.

The most frequently diagnosed cancer in Russia in 2017 is skin cancer, with more than 89 thousand cases registered during the year. The second most common cancer is breast cancer. In 2017, this diagnosis was made 70.6 thousand times. In third place is cancer of the trachea, bronchi and lungs: 62.2 thousand cases were diagnosed.

At the same time, the total number of cancer diagnoses increased by 3% over the year - from 599.3 thousand to 617.2 thousand detected diseases. According to official statistics, the number of Russians who died from malignant neoplasms in 2017 was 274.2 thousand people.

Director of the National Medical Research Center for Oncology named after. N.N. Petrova Alexey Belyaev commented that the increase in the number of diagnosed cancers cannot mean that Russians are getting sick more.

“As an oncologist, I can say - no, people are not getting more cancer, but they are finding it better. In addition, those elderly people who, including thanks to the development of medicine, were able to avoid a heart attack or stroke, began to live to see their cancer,” Belyaev said.

The fight against oncology became one of the main expense items in the new May decree of Russian President Vladimir Putin. During the direct line, Putin called the fight against cancer one of the main tasks to achieve an increase in the life expectancy of Russians. Putin said that it is necessary to increase the rates of early cancer detection, build new cancer centers and modernize existing ones, develop nuclear medicine, and increase the coverage of patients with medicines, including domestic drugs.

In March, the head of the Ministry of Health, Veronika Skvortsova, admitted that Russia lags significantly behind the rest of the world in the early diagnosis and treatment of cancer. As the minister noted, the one-year mortality rate of cancer patients needs to be halved in order to reach global indicators.