China steps up cancer monitoring

BEIJING -- China's health watchdog wants better cancer registration nationwide for speedy and accurate monitoring of the disease.

The government started recording information on cancer patients, including cancer type, longevity, gender and living habits, in 2008. By the end of 2014, a total of 308 cancer registration offices covered some 300 million people.

A cancer registration guideline released Wednesday by the National Health and Family Planning Commission made provincial-level governments responsible for founding a coordination center for all cancer registrations within their region, and demanded registration offices be set up at city and county levels. Disease prevention and control centers should provide data on cancer patient's deaths.

The commission told all health institutions in the network to report all tumor cases on a regular basis, and gave the National Cancer Institute responsibility for analyzing all reports prior to submission to the commission annually.

China sees 3.5 million new cases of cancer each year with 2.5 million people dying of cancer each year.