Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 8
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Currently over 60 percent of death cases in Iran are linked to wrong lifestyle, including unsuitable nutrition habits and smoking, an Iranian sociologist Majid Abhari said.
Annually about 90,000 people catch cancer in the country, he said, adding the number of cancer patients in Iran currently stands at 300,000, Mehr news agency reported Oct. 8.
Abhari went on to note that cancer is one of the top reasons for deaths in Iran.
"Air pollution, unhealthy food, obesity, physical inactivity are all predisposing factors for cancer. All these factors are preventable," the expert underlined.
He said that the number of cancer patients in Iran will double in Iran within 10 to 15 years.
Earlier Iraj Khosronia, head of the Iranian Internal Medicine Association said that the number of cancer patients in Iran increases by 20 to 30 percent every year.
Statistics indicate that the number of people who die of cancer in Iran is higher compared to the other countries due to late diagnosis.
Breast cancer is high among Iranian women, Khosronia said, adding that breast cancer topped the list of cancer incidences in Iran with some 30-32 percent, followed by skin cancer (23 percent) and gastrointestinal cancer (14 percent) among Iranians.
Khosronia went on to say that some 14 percent of cancer patients die in the country, while the figure in some countries such as the U.S., Japan and Canada is lower than 10 percent.
Iranian media outlets claim that every day about 105 people in the country die of cancer.