The nation has kicked off an early gastric cancer screening program, which can identify people with risk of gastric cancer through their blood.
So far, over 200 hospitals including 20 in Shanghai have participated the program, medical specialists announced at Yangpu Hospital yesterday, as the hospital joined the program.
All the 20 local hospitals in the program are mainly district-based medical facilities covering the whole city.
China is a country with a high prevalence of gastric cancer, the third commonest cancer in the nation. There are 400,000 new cases and 350,000 death cases every year. Both the new case and death case numbers account for 40 percent of the world's total.
"Over 90 percent of patients in early state of gastric cancer can survive for over five years, however the survival rate drops to less than 30 percent if the disease is detected in middle or late stage," said Dr Li Zhaoshen from Changhai Hospital and leader of the program. "China has no early gastric cancer screening mechanism. Less than 10 percent of gastric cancer is found in early stage in China, while the percentage is 70 in Japan and 50 in South Korea."
He said gastric cancer is mainly found through gastroscopy in China, but invasive endoscope can't be used as a wide screening measure. The blood test is easy and non-invasive for screening out those with high risk of gastric cancer for further gastroscopy.
