Ger­ard Best

Trinidad and To­ba­go has one of the re­gion's high­est can­cer mor­tal­i­ty rates, ac­cord­ing to a new re­port from the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (PA­HO).

The re­port links the coun­try's high in­ci­dence of can­cer-re­lat­ed death to the preva­lence of obe­si­ty in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean.

Obe­si­ty, an im­por­tant can­cer risk fac­tor, is preva­lent in T&T, as well as in the Ba­hamas, Be­lize and Saint Kitts & Nevis. Obe­si­ty is de­scribed as a body mass in­dex of 30 or above.

How to cal­cu­late your Body Mass In­dex.

The re­port al­so showed that T&T pro­vides lim­it­ed ac­cess to opi­oids (less than13 mg to­tal mor­phine equiv­a­lents per capi­ta).

How­ev­er, it ac­knowl­edged that T&T was one of on­ly 13 of 35 coun­tries that re­port­ed hav­ing in­tro­duced vac­cines for HPV–which caus­es cer­vi­cal can­cer–in­to its na­tion­al im­mu­ni­sa­tion pro­gram.

Down­load the PDF: Find out more about can­cer mor­tal­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Can­cer rate high­est in Caribbean, Latin Amer­i­ca

The PA­HO re­port shows that Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean ac­count for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 50% of can­cer deaths in the Amer­i­c­as, al­though they ac­count for 63% of the hemi­sphere's pop­u­la­tion.

Over­all, can­cer is hold­ing steady as the sec­ond-lead­ing cause of death in the Amer­i­c­as, claim­ing an es­ti­mat­ed 1.3 mil­lion lives each year, ac­cord­ing to Can­cer in the Amer­i­c­as: Coun­try Pro­files, 2013, re­leased this week at the 5th In­ter­na­tion­al Can­cer Con­trol Con­gress (Nov. 3�6) in Li­ma, Pe­ru.

Can­cer deaths over­all are de­clin­ing in nine coun­tries: Ar­genti­na, Brazil, Cana­da, Chile, Mex­i­co, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Venezuela and the Unit­ed States.

Mex­i­co, Nicaragua and El Sal­vador have the low­est can­cer mor­tal­i­ty rates.

Women more at risk

Al­though can­cer mor­tal­i­ty rates vary for men and women, it is typ­i­cal­ly high­er in men, dri­ven by high rates of lung and prostate can­cers. In Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean men, the ma­jor­i­ty of can­cer deaths are due to prostate can­cer, fol­lowed by lung, stom­ach and col­orec­tal can­cers; and in women, breast can­cer, fol­lowed by stom­ach, lung, cer­vi­cal and col­orec­tal can­cers.

"The large num­ber of deaths from breast and cer­vi­cal can­cer in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean is very dis­con­cert­ing, since cer­vi­cal can­cer is large­ly pre­ventable, and breast can­cer can be de­tect­ed ear­ly and treat­ed suc­cess­ful­ly,'' said Sil­vana Lu­ciani, PA­HO/WHO ad­vi­sor on can­cer pre­ven­tion and con­trol.

''This points to the need to im­prove screen­ing and treat­ment, es­pe­cial­ly for women in rur­al and re­mote ar­eas, where ac­cess to health ser­vices is es­pe­cial­ly lim­it­ed."

Health da­ta can im­prove pol­i­cy

The re­port is based on re­cent da­ta com­piled by PA­HO about can­cer mor­tal­i­ty, risk fac­tors, and can­cer poli­cies and ser­vices in the coun­tries of North, South and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

For each coun­try, da­ta are pre­sent­ed for lead­ing can­cer types (ranked by mor­tal­i­ty); trends in can­cer deaths from 2000 to 2010; main can­cer risk fac­tors (to­bac­co, al­co­hol, di­et, phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty, obe­si­ty); key so­cio-de­mo­graph­ic fac­tors; and health sec­tor plans, poli­cies and ser­vices for can­cer.

"The idea is to pro­vide key in­for­ma­tion that can help coun­tries mon­i­tor progress in can­cer con­trol and as­sess ar­eas of need," said Lu­ciani. "This re­port con­tributes sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the ev­i­dence base for can­cer pol­i­cy­mak­ing and health care."

Al­though T&T has a na­tion­al, hos­pi­tal-based can­cer reg­istry, the last year for which da­ta are avail­able is 2011.