{"id":454022,"date":"2026-05-31T12:01:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T12:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/454022\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T12:01:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T12:01:18","slug":"is-hong-kong-winning-the-war-on-cancer-or-facing-new-battle-in-late-diagnosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/454022\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Hong Kong winning the war on cancer or facing new battle in late diagnosis?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In the first of a six-part Health Matters wellness series on cancer in Hong Kong, Emily Hung looks into how the city takes on its leading cause of death while maintaining one of the lowest mortality rates in the developed world and what more it must do to excel as a hub for cancer research.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">When Hong Kong began modern cancer tracking in 1983, it recorded 15,000 new cases and a far higher death rate than today.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Four decades on, the number of cases has more than doubled to 38,000, yet the risk of dying from the disease has nearly halved. In 1983, the city\u2019s age-standardised cancer death rate stood at 136.7 per 100,000 people. By 2023, it had fallen to 71.1.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Cancer remained the city\u2019s top killer in 2023, claiming nearly 15,000 lives \u2013 more than a quarter of all deaths \u2013 according to the latest official data. Its mortality rate, however, is among the lowest in developed economies.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The average across Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries was 191 deaths per 100,000 people. Meanwhile, Japan and South Korea recorded rates of 174 and 150, respectively, according to the latest data available.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Experts attributed the success to Hong Kong\u2019s access to world-class drugs and treatments, but warned that the city must invest more in early prevention and screening to truly lead in cancer management.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Professor Tony Mok says advances such as targeted therapy and immunotherapy have improved global survival rates. Photo: Jonathan Wong\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/af7317cc-70ab-42d6-828a-7f06004b7209_bab79a96.jpg\" title=\"Professor Tony Mok says advances such as targeted therapy and immunotherapy have improved global survival rates. Photo: Jonathan Wong\"\/>Professor Tony Mok says advances such as targeted therapy and immunotherapy have improved global survival rates. Photo: Jonathan Wong<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the first of a six-part Health Matters wellness series on cancer in Hong Kong, Emily Hung looks&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[365,231002,13286,231001,230999,134,4431,66915,111,139,69,128627,230998,231000,231003,14095,11038,231004,9458],"class_list":["post-454022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-ai","tag-cancer-strategy-concern-group","tag-chinese-university-of-hong-kong","tag-dicky-chow-ka-chun","tag-emily-hung","tag-health","tag-hong-kong","tag-hospital-authority","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-organisation-for-economic-cooperation-and-development","tag-our-hong-kong-foundation","tag-professor-tony-mok-shu-kam","tag-professor-yuen-man-fung","tag-south-china-morning-post","tag-university-of-hong-kong","tag-wendy-chan-wing-lok","tag-world-health-organization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}