Cancer rates rising, doctor says

Close to 3 percent of all admissions to Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, the leading medical institution in Accra, are related to cancer, a disease neglected for years in Ghana but now becoming a major source of concern, the president of the Ghana Medical Association said on Wednesday. 0pening a one-day national conference for the establishment of a cancer registry in Accra, Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa also said that Burkitts Lymphoma, the most commonly reported type of cancer, accounted for 16.5 percent of the cancer patients admitted. Ghana Review International, a Web-based news provider, reported that the registry would form the basis for assessing and controlling the impact of cancer. It would also record and document particulars of patients and the clinical pathological characteristics of the disease. In a speech read on his behalf, WHO Representative Dr. Melville George said the annual incidence of cancer was projected to increase from nine million to now 15 million by the year 2015 "with two-thirds of this figure coming from the developing countries". Five million people die each year of the disease, he added.